45% more people with brain injuries
are getting help in their rehabilitation around the city and county
than a year ago. Staff at Leicestershire Leicester and Rutland Headway's
outreach service have almost doubled their workload over the same
period, and a new centre has been established in Oakham.
These were some of the highlights reported to the charity's AGM
by General Manager Sylvia Davis, who spoke of "a memorable
year". Other highlights included increasing levels of skills
training within the wider community, and in particular new initiatives
for specialised courses at Leicester College and Brooksby Agricultural
College. Sylvia described the key event of the year as the new co-operation
with Social Services, the Health Authority and the Leicester Royal
Infirmary-based Brain Injury Team, and said that Headway's philosophy
"seemed to permeate all discussions and be championed by several
people other than Headway staff."
This theme was picked up by the Guest Speaker, Dr Peter Reading,
Chairman of the University Hospitals of Leicester NHS Trust. Recognising
previous inadequacies and under-funding in the Leicester area,
he spoke of Headway's key role both now and in the future. He
confirmed that Headway would be consolidated into the "ambitious"
reforms of the Leicester Hospitals now under way. The early treatment
of brain injury would also be radically improved, said Dr Reading,
with a "substantial chunk" of the new money received
by the Trust going into neurosurgery and rehabilitation. The Brain
Injury Team will be further augmented as soon as suitably qualified
staff can be found. But he warned of the potentially long time
lag in training sufficient numbers of consultants to meet the
demand, not just locally but nationally.
Earlier, Headway's Chairman Michael Switzer had spoken of an
increase in activity and income, new initiatives and a continued
high standard of service. He thanked all the people and organisations
who had contributed to this success with their time and money,
and singled out the Edith Murphy Foundation for their generous
contributions to Headway's funding. He expressed the hope that
the new co-operation between the various authorities would lead
to more secure funding for Headway and the ability to plan further
ahead.
This release issued by Richard Bird (01327 704734 or email
)
More from Richard or Sylvia Davis (email
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