About

As experienced health care professionals one thing we have in abundance is patient mileage. Across our careers we have touched the lives of thousands of people and I’m afraid it’s impossible to remember each and every one in detail.

But as all healthcare workers will attest to, there are those who stand out and stay with you for years to come. This can be for a variety of reasons from the most positive working relationships and outcomes you achieved, or the best sense of humour to the most challenging and demanding either clinically, emotionally or circumstantially.

Just one of the ones who remain in my thoughts is an elderly lady who I went out to visit just before Christmas. She had a diagnosis of Dementia and had been referred to me due to hip pain. I visited her in her home and very quickly her hip pain became the least of my concerns. She was extremely isolated with only a nephew and neighbour checking in on her periodically and could go weeks without seeing another human. She spoke of loneliness and attempted to mask her confusion over her medication. My physical assessment only worsened by concerns as she demonstrated very unsafe transfers and I discovered she had been sleeping in her chair downstairs to minimise the risk.

I gave her some exercises for her hip and mobility, arranged to return with a new walking aid and with her permission, immediately referred her to social services to arrange 24hr care. I knew it was very unlikely she was going to complete her exercises without support and felt guilty that I couldn’t offer more, but this was a feeling I had grown accustomed to working within the constraints of the NHS.

She played on my mind over the following week hoping social services had reacted quickly, but unfortunately my next contact was with her nephew who informed me she had been admitted to hospital with a suspected overdose. Thankfully, this turned out to be a false alarm due to her confusion and impaired memory. She was then discharged to a residential care provider I had visited before and knew as being one of the better ones in the area. I allowed her some time to get settled and recover from some new infections before attempting to visit again with a plan to provide the new walking aid and retry implementing her HEP with care support.

However, on my attempt I was informed that the lady no longer needed Physiotherapy input. She had been reviewed by the service provider’s own visiting Physiotherapist who had provided the new walking aid and she was engaging with their weekly exercise groups. Not only that, she was now sleeping in a proper bed in her own room, mobilising frequently around the home, helping other residents and thriving. Because of this her hip pain had reduced significantly, she was happier, less confused and overall healthier.

This was the best outcome I could have hoped for for her. However, I know too well that this could have been a completely different outcome had she been allocated to a different service provider in the area. There were a number of options and it was pure luck that this property had a bed available at the right time. Whilst working in the NHS there were properties we would visit multiple times a month for different residents and new assessments, and while we would have loved to be able to support them better, they were not the ones who caused concern. The ones that trigger unease are those who we didn’t receive any referrals for, or those we visited one patient and saw first hand what lack of intervention, stimulation and activity does to residents over time.

I think about those people often and compare it with the outcome of the lady above. This, coupled with the guilt I often feel due to the NHS limitations, and my belief that few service providers opened or staff members went into work with the intention of doing a bad job, was the reason Allied Motion was created.