RNRU Outreach Team
Service Description
We are a regional specialist community-based rehabilitation team for people with acquired brain injury (ABI).
- We provide specialist, neuropsychology-led interdisciplinary neurorehabilitation for adults (aged 16 and over) with non-progressive ABI (e.g. stroke, traumatic brain injury or infection).
Our catchment area covers the following boroughs in North-East London and parts of Essex (p eople living & with a GP)
- Barking & Dagenham
- Haringey
- Havering
- Redbridge
- Waltham Forest
We can apply for funding for people with a GP in:
- West Essex
- Basildon & Brentwood
- Thurrock
We are an evidence-based service which adheres to the highest quality standards including national and government guidelines. We use a person-centred, holistic model of rehabilitation.
We aim to increase patient independence and self-esteem through improving their participation in work, study and leisure activities, and their social relationships. We further strive to support patients to set up a network of support, providing family/carer support and education so that gains are sustained and built upon post discharge. We liaise closely with multi-agency professionals, including social care, and provide specialist consultation to partner services as required.
Typical treatment involves the therapists working with a patient in his/her own home, community setting or place of work or education, approximately once or twice a week. Rehabilitation goals direct our interventions, and these are agreed between patients, their relatives/carers and the therapists, ensuring that each treatment package is individualised to suit a client’s particular needs. Treatment is time-limited, treatment sessions and length of rehabilitation is agreed with the patient when our rehabilitation plan is set.
Services offered
We provide interdisciplinary assessment and intervention across three broad pathways: Complex community neurorehabilitation:
- (cognitive, communication, physical and psychological rehabilitation)
- vocational rehabilitation: support to return to existing work or study
- disability management: interventions focus on indirect delivery of rehabilitation via family/care system including positive behavioural support.
Across neuro-rehabilitation pathways interventions incorporate:
- family and carer support
- brain injury education (e.g. for patients, family, carers and employers)
- carer and support worker training
- specialist brain injury consultation to local services and other agencies.
Disciplines available
- Clinical Neuropsychology
- Occupational Therapy
- Physiotherapy
- Speech & Language Therapy
- Rehabilitation Assistant.
Referral & inclusion criteria
Patients must have a confirmed acquired brain injury (ABI) diagnosis. Typically, this will be single incident although repeat incident/ recurrence will be considered on an individual basis. Diagnosis of a progressive neurological condition is an exclusion criteria for our service.
Patients must be 16 years or older (although please note in Essex individual funding is sought for patients, and currently there is no established pathway for under 18’s).
As a specialist service, we can only consider referrals for patients whose rehabilitation goals cannot be met by local services (i.e. where the rehabilitation goals are of a level of complexity or require a specialist interdisciplinary neuropsychological rehabilitation approach that cannot be provided locally).
In practice, this means patients will have already accessed their local service prior to referral to our team; or have been identified by these services or other professionals involved in their care as having complex needs.
Patients must be living within 50 minutes’ drive of Homerton Hospital. These include patients registered with a GP in one of the following areas:
- Barking & Dagenham
- Haringey
- Havering
- Redbridge
- Waltham Forest
- West Essex
- Thurrock
- Basildon & Brentwood
As a regional service the team has service level agreements with NHS providers in Barking & Dagenham, Haringey, Havering, Redbridge and Waltham Forest. This means we can provide rehabilitation for patients with a GP in these boroughs based on need.
For patient’s resident in Essex (or with an Essex GP), individual funding is required to access our service. We recommend referrers approach the local neuro-navigators to discuss referral to our service, because the referrer is best placed to advocate for the patients needs. For those self-referring we will approach the Neuro-navigator to request funding consideration once the referral is received and considered. For any advice on contact with the neuro-navigators in Essex, please contact our service.
To access our vocational rehabilitation pathway, patients should be:
- functionally ready and able to engage in a vocationally focused intervention (i.e. have already progressed community and daily function goals)
- have an established job or education place to return to.
How to refer
Individuals can be referred to the RNRU Outreach Team via their consultant, GP, Social Services, Allied Health Professionals, Case Managers or community organisations such as Headway, or Different Strokes. Patients or their families can also self-refer.
RNRU Outreach team referral [dotx]
Please note we encourage telephone or email enquiries prior to submitting a formal referral to discuss individual needs and circumstances, given the regional and specialist nature of our service. Please see the below contact details
Contact Details
RNRU Outreach Team
Homerton University Hospital
Homerton Row
London, E9 6SR
Tel: 020 8510 7967
email: huh-tr.outreach@nhs.net
Service development and leadership is supported by the Homerton INSPIRE strategy and transformation board. INSPIRE stands for Improving Neurology and Stroke Services, Patient engagement, Integration and Rehabilitation.