Our People

The suitability of staff working at all levels within the organisation is pivotal to ensuring the on-going high quality of our services. We ensure that all staff meet the requirements of their role, both in terms of their experience and qualifications. We have a regular appraisal system for all employees that identify areas of good practice and also highlight staff training needs.

The Specialist Nursing Team

Our specialist nurse team come from a range of specialisms to reflect our diverse client group. They are experienced in a wide range of areas of nursing practice and receive on-going training and opportunities for continuing professional development. The specialist nurses are well versed at interdisciplinary working and are part of the team that evidences client outcomes.

The Opportunities Team

The opportunities team work to facilitate clients’ social opportunities and to support the therapy team to deliver on-going therapy programmes. They also have a wide knowledge of local facilities amenities and resources in addition to the social facilities at Chase Park. They bridge the gap between therapy, care and support individual lifestyle choices. They also run a range of in-house activities and facilitate the lively resident’s forum as well as assisting residents in arranging regular holidays and short breaks.

Physiotherapists

Physiotherapists skilled in neurorehabilitation base much of their treatment techniques on an in depth knowledge of ‘normal movement’ and the complex interactions of neuromuscular systems with sensory input from the eyes, ears, balance apparatus and the joints and skin. Abnormal movement phenomena such as high tone, ataxia, and tremors are understood and the aim is to reduce these influences and use methods such as skilled handling, positioning and guided movement to achieve integration of movement often at an automatic level.

Clinical Neuropsychologists

Clinical Neuropsychologists have particular skills in assessing and working with the cognitive (thinking) problems that commonly occur with neural damage. The areas of focus include looking at specific skills such as reading, writing and numeracy as well as planning and organizing abilities, orientation in time and place, object and people recognition skills and the many facets of memory impairments alongside influences such as concentration and behavioural changes.

Occupational Therapists

Occupational Therapists working with neurodisability offer approaches that specifically seek to assess and extend functional and social capabilities. They operate in domains that deliberately overlap with each of the other therapy approaches and with everyday care tasks. Their role centres on creating functional progress that is meaningful in the context of the individual’s life. This often includes activities such as establishing independent dressing and other self-care tasks (including developing verbal independence to instruct carers if necessary), addressing functional household tasks such as making meals and drinks, laundry and cleaning as well as social and vocational areas of;

Speech and Language Therapists

Speech and Language Therapists in neurorehabilitation focus on the main areas of expressing and receiving communication as well as the ability to orally manage food and swallow safely (dysphagia work). At Chase Park the emphasis is focused more around communication with monitoring of swallowing and use of health service resources where any significant changes or problems arise with dysphagia. Communication work links with the work of our physiotherapists in areas around respiratory support and positioning for speech output and areas of focus are shared between speech therapy and neuro-psychology in terms of verbal memory, reading ability, social communication and recognition skills involved in non-verbal communication.

Therapy Assistants

The Therapy Assistants at Chase Park Neuro Centre are skilled and experienced with all either trained or qualified as therapists. Our therapy assistants are generic and deliver technical parts of the rehabilitation programme holistically in that more than one therapy can be delivered in a single session through one person which is often a powerful and economical way to deliver therapy. Therapy assistants are also an efficient way of delivering skilled and technical therapy approaches where more than one therapist is needed for an individual. Our therapy assistants receive regular and on-going training and they are trained to observe and measure change as well as deliver therapy, although they do not carry out initial or formal assessment and they are not empowered to decide upon any change of therapy approach.