Conference Report: District General Hospitals: The Good, the Bad, the Indifferent.
2nd October 2010
National Centre for Deafblindness
John and Lucille van Geest Place
Cygnet Road, Hampton
Peterborough PE7 8FD.
This conference which followed the AGM of the Spinal Injuries Associaton (SIA) was judged an immense success by all those who attended. Delegates gathered to share concerns related to the discrepancies experienced by SCI people when admitted to local general hospitals. Delegates learned how in future, new acute SCI patients who are unable to be admitted immediately to an SCI centre will be streamlined into Major Trauma Centres to reduce the number of hospitals expected to treat acute SCI patients supported by outreach teams from the SCI Centres. In addition, SCI Link-Workers are being trained to work within local hospitals to support SCI people not just during their initial admission but also during any subsequent readmissions for health problems unrelated to their original SCI. The SIA Community Peer Support Team was also showcased during the conference and explained its intention to continue to expand its service to cover the whole of the UK. The results of a recent audit and impact analysis of the Peer Support Service by Plymouth University provided definitive evidence of how much this service benefits both SCI people and the professionals who care for them outside of the specialist SCI Centres. Overall, the conference applauded the efforts currently coming into place to enhance the acute SCI performance but wanted to see a similar level of investment for SCI people readmitted to hospital. It was explained that this process is being addressed by requiring every hospital to have a SCI policy which requires the immediate notification of a SCI Centre or local SCI-LINK team to support the admission of a SCI person into any ward or department. This conference has provided SIA and the SCI Centre network much to consider over the next year.