Physiotherapy: Rehabilitation Services

Baroness Manzoor Excerpts

Thursday 23rd February 2023 Lords Chamber

[Lord Markham (Con)]

Absolutely. That is why, as part of my research, I was pleased to read up on the national integrated community stroke service, which is designed to give personalised stroke rehabilitation in every person’s home. Its work is vital in achieving this. The House has heard me talk many times about the 13,000 beds that are blocked in our hospitals, and a lot of the way to free them is by having rehabilitation and getting people back into their home environment. I absolutely agree on the importance of this issue, and that is why noble Lords will see it as an important part of the workforce plan.

[Baroness Manzoor (Con)]

My Lords, I welcome the Answer my noble friend the Minister gave, but I will give him a real-life example, and declare my interest in doing so: somebody had two strokes, then had a third while waiting over an hour for an ambulance to arrive, has had no physiotherapy rehabilitation at home, and is still waiting a year on for that. This is a real example of people on the ground. Does the Minister agree that we must connect our policies with very clear outcomes?

[Lord Markham (Con)]

Totally. I am sorry to hear that case, and I think that we would all agree that that is not the sort of service we would want to see. As I said, we have put increases in staff in place—there have been 3,300 extra staff since 2017—but, clearly, we need to do more. That is why I was very pleased to read that this area is an important part of the workforce plan, which noble Lords will be happy to hear we are now seeing drafts of.