As an established healthcare provider, Cygnet Health Care has more recently moved into neurorehabilitation and continues to build its presence in the area. NR Times finds out more
Introducing Cygnet Health Care into the Neurological Rehabilitation sector has been an exciting journey over the last 3 years. Cygnet Health Care has long been recognised as offering a wide range of services for individuals experiencing a variety of mental health conditions. However what has not been so widely known is that since 2012 Cygnet has also offered a clinically led evidence based neuropsychiatric rehabilitation pathway provided by dedicated and experienced interdisciplinary teams.
Cygnet offers those individuals presenting with behaviours that challenge as a result of an Acquired Brain Injury a safe place to aid recovery, in addition to offering a caring and supportive placement to help manage the progression of the more behaviourally challenging symptoms which some Neurodegenerative conditions can cause.
Quietly establishing a number of sites across the country, Cygnet Health Care Neuropsychiatry services have provided a vital role within the neurorehabilitation pathway nationally. Originally under the name of Cambian, the first eight bedded service was launched on the outskirts of Nottingham to great success. Its sister service the Grange opened a couple of years later providing a further 8 beds in the locality.
Meadow Mews
Based on the successful outcomes achieved by those first service users came the inception of Cygnet Heathers – a 20 bedded service in West Bromwich. Struggling to find suitable and appropriate transitional services for those achieving their goals in the hospital setting drove the plans to develop Meadows Mews.
This 10 bedded transitional service allows service users to firmly consolidate their new skills within the heart of the community, where participation in both social and domestic activities is vital for their quality of life, and long term future in the community. Residents at Meadows Mews continue to receive neuropsychiatric, psychological, occupational therapy and support worker interventions as required.
Now rated by the Headway accreditation scheme, both Heathers (Outstanding) and Meadows Mews (Good) have established themselves firmly within the West Midlands Neurorehabilitation pathway.
2017 saw the development of Cygnet Brunel – a 32 bedded service in the heart of Bristol. The largest of the services Cygnet offers to support those requiring Neuropsychiatric Rehabilitation. Its establishment within the South West has provided a range of pathways open to service users requiring this specialised treatment. Now the NHSE Level 1 provider of Neuropsychiatric treatment for the South West, Brunel continues to expand its staff skill set to support those who need access to Neuropsychiatric rehabilitation within a matter of weeks of sustaining their neurological insult or injury.
Four individual units within Brunel allow the service to offer specialised pathways within its walls; providing the flexibility of environment and staffing skill set to meet the varied and complex individual needs of all its service users. The latest addition to this pathway mix is the opening of a 6 bedded unit offering slow stream community rehabilitation – for those service users whose vulnerability and/or risks are just not quite at the point of supporting a successful discharge into the community, but who can explore all that independent living can offer, with carefully directed support and encouragement. An amazing space where quite often you find most of the service users out and about for most of the day. A great stepping stone to maximise successful discharges and something that offers a solution for those not quite ready to go to a community based transitional service.
Newham House
Not leaving the North of the country out, Cygnet embarked on developing services in the North East. February 2019 saw the opening of Cygnet St William’s providing a 12 bedded service located in Darlington. Small but perfectly formed this service has gone from strength to strength and suits those individuals who need a lower stimulus environment that’s based in the heart of the community.
Cygnet Pindar House located in Barnsley saw Cygnet Neuropsychiatry services launch in the heart of Yorkshire in February 2020. This purpose built 22 bedded hospital has the same focus; to create a therapeutic rich environment which engages our service users and offers them the opportunity to minimise their challenging behaviour and maximise their independence.
All these services are for men only; until we opened Cygnet Newham House in July 2020. Located in Middlesbrough this purpose built service is based in the community offering 12 hospital beds and 8 transitional beds for females. A fabulous space that offers flexibility and a unique environment for women requiring Neuropsychiatric rehabilitation.
What all services have in common is that they offer a wide range of activities and facilities to promote independent function; working with dedicated and experienced staff and clinicians. Positive behaviour goals are focused on discharge planning to support service users to return to community living – either with support or independently.
Our services are able to accept individuals with complex physical health needs and all have en-suite bedrooms with some providing more accessible facilities for those with mobility impairments.
Specific treatment pathways include:
- Inpatient Neuropsychiatric assessment and treatment programmes offering both active goal focussed neurorehabilitation and slow stream neurobehavioural rehabilitation/longer term symptom management
- Fixed term inpatient bespoke assessment/review of behaviour management and Neuropsychiatric presentations
Interdisciplinary teams consisting of neuropsychiatry, psychiatry, psychology, occupational therapy, speech and language therapy, physiotherapy, nursing, therapy co-ordinators and support workers provide our inpatient neurorehabilitation assessment and treatment programmes. These teams are employed by Cygnet directly working collaboratively and ingeniously to develop bespoke programmes for our service users to adopt and make their own.
Pindar House
A key focus for Cygnet Neuropsychiatry services as a whole is to embed the best of practice into daily treatment and support, and to ensure we never become so insular that we cannot support the wider initiatives within the world of Neurorehabilitation.
We work hard as wider team to benchmark our patient outcomes with other services, look to organisations like the Independent Neurorehabilitation Providers Alliance to help us set high standards of service delivery whilst working with Headway to achieve an independent review of the programmes and environments we offer.
Our national Cygnet Neuropsychiatry Steering Group shares best practice, determines quality standards whilst integrating national developments within the sector to our model of care and staff development programmes. Cygnet Neuropsychiatry invests back into the sector with partnerships developed with both UKABIF and Headway which we feel is vital to support the work that goes on to embed neurorehabilitation into the heart of the treatment pathways offered to those affected by brain injuries and other neurological insults.
Cygnet sponsored the Time for Change report brilliantly developed through the All Party Parliamentary Group for ABI in collaboration with UKABIF. Key to this is to also ensure families and carers are involved and made aware of how a person’s brain injury may affect them in the longer term, which was a major part of the recommendations formed in this report.
The Time for Change report and associated meetings and publicity also provided a voice for those who are not always heard by Ministers and MPs and the championing of its production was fully embraced by the Chair of the APPG for ABI, Chris Bryant, who utilised this time to raise key issues across health, social care and welfare all of which affect people living with an ABI in the UK. It was key to us as an organisation dedicated to providing the best possible treatment and care to maximise people’s quality of life and recovery, that we assist in raising awareness of acquired brain injuries and seek improvements in support and services for people directly affected by an ABI through this vital sponsorship.
Ensuring all our developed services are assessed and accredited with both INPA and Headway is the goal for 2021/22. It’s important that we are able to continue to learn and develop our own services and staff, collaborate with our service user and ensure that we showcase how Neuropsychiatry is delivered and what amazing outcomes our services users are able to achieve whilst they are with us.
For more information visit https://www.cygnethealth.co.uk/services/neuropsychiatric/ or call Rachael Chamberlain (Business Development Director) on 07872 401048 rachaelchamberlain@cygnethealth.co.uk or rachael.chamberlain@nhs.net
