A rehabilitation specialist is expanding its offering through the opening of the first intensive neurotherapy centre in the south of England.
Hobbs Rehabilitation has invested £500,000 in its new Intensive Neurotherapy Centre in Bristol, which has given 2,000sq ft of space to more than double its level of technology available at its previous Bristol clinic.
It also gives the potential to deliver a six-fold increase in the intensity of treatment, all backed by data to chart patient progress and outcomes.
Through the creation of its new centre, Hobbs Rehabilitation Bristol is expanding its services beyond its core upper limb therapy to bring in lower limb specialism, with plans in place to develop an additional intensive speech and language therapy (SLT) service for aphasia patients.
A move into paediatric work is also being considered, as part of its ongoing development.
Four new people have already been added to the team based at the Intensive Neurotherapy Centre – two physiotherapists, one occupational therapist and a rehab assistant – with more set to be recruited as the centre continues to grow.
While its traditional client base has been mainly people with neurological conditions, such as stroke, the new centre is enabling it to work with growing numbers of spinal cord injury patients – with Ed Jackson, a former rugby union player who sustained such an injury in 2017, being one of its clients.
Bristol is the first Hobbs Rehabilitation centre with the entire Tyrosolution suite from Tyromotion, including the LEXO robotic gait trainer, having increased its provision from three to seven pieces of the high-tech equipment.
It is also the first independent provider in the UK to combine bespoke high-dosage physiotherapy, occupational therapy and speech and language therapy alongside the complete Tyrosolution and other assistive technologies such as the MyoPro.
“This new centre is a big expansion and investment and we plan to continue with this development of our services going forward,” says Ali Gomes da Silva, clinical lead at Hobbs Rehabilitation Bristol.
“We are looking to develop an SLT service with a specialist who used to work in aphasia rehab in Spain, and we are also looking to add a paediatrics service.
“One of our new additions to the team joined us from Glavic Clinic in Zagreb and has worked extensively in this area, so combined with the expertise we already have in the team and the equipment we now have, paediatrics is an area we are looking to expand into.
“We have added a number of people to our team already, and we’ll continue to recruit against the workload.”
While ongoing COVID-19 restrictions mean the centre can accommodate four people at one time currently, that will be raised to six in the near future as lockdown lifts, with more to be added in time.
And already the demand for such time is significant, says Ali, with referrals coming from therapists, case managers and patients themselves.
“We have done a lot of work with stroke patients to date through our upper limb service, but I think our huge increase in SCI is in large part through Ed Jackson being so vocal on social media,” she says.
“He’s been absolutely blown over by the advances in therapy practice we’ve made and how we can supply the data to support that.
“Through our new technology and equipment, we have made really good advances in both lower limb and upper limb, so are now even more able to support people with their therapy.
“We’ve fulfilled all the plans we had in place initially, but the expansion will continue as we go.”
