Occupational therapists and support workers help people engage as independently as possible in the activities (occupations) which enhance their health and wellbeing.

'The treatment of people with physical and psychiatric illness or disability through specific selected occupation for the purpose of enabling individuals to reach their maximum level of functioning and independence in all aspects of life. The occupational therapist assesses the physical, psychological and social functions of the individual, identifies areas of dysfunction and involves the individual in a structured programme of activity to overcome disability. The activity selected will relate to the consumers personal, social, cultural and economic needs and will reflect the environmental factors which govern his/her life.’ College of Occupational Therapy 2000

For further information on the College of Occupational Therapy, visit www.cot.co.uk

Occupational Therapy enables those who are recovering from illness, or adapting to permanent or temporary disability, to be as independent as possible. Intervention is directed towards:

• providing comprehensive assessment
• improving or maintaining functional levels
• organising a safe home environment
• facilitating discharge from hospital
• ensuring, when appropriate, continuing rehabilitation at home

Examples of occupational therapy intervention in a hospital setting may include:

• Assessment of activities of daily living (ADL)
• Physical rehabilitation
• Cognitive rehabilitation
• Providing equipment to enable ongoing independence following discharge from hospital
• Training in alternative techniques and use of equipment to achieve independence.
• Home visits and adaptation of the home environment
• Splinting to aid good position, prevention of contracture and return of function
• Providing advice to patient and carers
• Promotion of health and coping strategies.
• Planning and facilitating hospital discharge
• Mobilisation of joints, building up strength, dexterity and work tolerance
• Retraining in specific movements and skill

Assessment for the provision of wheelchairs when there is a long term need (over 6 months).

The Occupational Therapy service within North Bristol NHS Trust provides high quality, efficient and patient centred services to achieve the best possible outcomes for all individuals who are referred.

There are around 90 occupational therapists working within a majority of the specialities within the trust, providing excellent care for inpatients and outpatients.

The services covered are:

• General Medicine
• General Surgery
• Care of the Elderly (Acute & rehab)
• Rheumatology
• Palliative Care
• Neurosurgery
• Neurology
• Burns & Plastics
• Trauma and elective Orthopaedics
• Upper Limb Rehabilitation
• Day Hospital
• Stroke Rehabilitation/ Stroke outreach
• Rheumatology
• Dementia Services

Occupational Therapy Outpatient services include:

• Rheumatology
• Scar Management
• Burns and Plastics
• Upper limb rehabilitation for wrist/hand fractures
• Upper limb prosthetics
• Wheelchair Services

If you have a burn affecting a joint you will often be seen by the therapy team. The team consists of Physiotherapists and Occupational Therapists.

Therapy may consist of exercises, assistance with walking, practise with functional tasks, a fitness program and/or splinting.

Physiotherapy

Physiotherapy helps restore movement and function to as near normal as possible when someone is affected by injury or illness. The burn may be painful and make it difficult for you to move.  Your Physiotherapist will ensure you are given adequate pain relief for your therapy sessions and will provide you with exercises to help regain your movement as quickly as possible. Where a patient is having difficulty walking, a physiotherapist has access to a range of walking aids to help get you back on your feet.

The Physiotherapy team has access to a large gym with the latest exercise equipment such as a treadmill and exercise bikes. You may also be offered use of the Nintendo Wii computer gaming system to help distract and entertain you while you exercise.

Occupational Therapy (OT)

OT helps to restore movement and function by practising functional tasks such as dressing. They assess your ability to manage at home to ensure once discharged home you will be able to manage your every-day tasks. OT’s have access to a wide range of equipment to help you with tasks you are finding difficult e.g. dressing.

Psychology/emotional support

Recovering from a burn injury can be a difficult time. The ward has access to a Psychologist who may visit you at your bedside to talk about any difficulties you may have coming to terms with your injury.

The Acute Burns Clinic (ABC) is next to the burns unit on Gate 33A, Level 2, Brunel Building (in the pink zone).

When visiting this clinic please enter the Burns Unit and speak to the receptionist who will ask you to take a seat in the waiting area just outside the ward. There is limited space so please try to avoid bringing children where possible and limit additional family members.

The ABC offers appointments daily, seeing burns patients referred to the service by:

• GP’s
• Emergency Departments
• Minor Injury Units.

The clinic offers the ability to:

• Provide specialist assessment and treatment of new burn injuries
• Provide dressing changes which are more difficult to perform in the community because they take time or require specialist pain relief such as Entonox
• Shower your burns if required
• Take an image of your burn with a Laser Doppler Imager (LDI) or a photograph if required. This can provide information to support the decision making process on how best to manage your injury
• Complex burns injury multi-disciplinary team (MDT) review on a Monday afternoon 2pm-3.30pm
• Allow reviews by others members of the burns team for example Physiotherapists, Occupational Therapists or Clinical Psychologist
• Allow you to take part in some of the additional work done in the department such as research and evaluations.

The Acute Medical Unit (AMU) is situated at Gate 31b and 31a, Level 0, within the Emergency Zone, Brunel building.

The Acute Medicine Unit provides the initial:

• assessment
• investigation
• diagnosis
• management of patients with an acute medical illness during the first 72 hours of their hospital stay.

They also provide expertise in the management of medical patients who can be cared for in an ambulatory setting.

The Acute Medicine Unit consists of Acute Medicine Consultants, nurses, pharmacists, junior doctors and physiotherapists and sees a complex mix of acutely unwell medical patients. Support is provided to the team by specialist nurses and doctors in other specialties.

The Acute Medicine Unit team have a vision that they will provide high quality acute medical care for every patient; delivered personally, professionally and compassionately by an expert team.

The Richard Bright Renal Service at Southmead Hospital Bristol is the largest of its kind in the South West of England.

It carries out more than 100 kidney transplants every year and has led the way with laparoscopic kidney transplants (keyhole surgery), spousal donation and non-heart beating donor transplants. The unit is also pioneering techniques to enable highly sensitised patients and recipients and donors with incompatible blood groups to have a live kidney transplant.

Southmead Hospital Bristol has been at the forefront of the living kidney transplant programme for many years and has some of the best success rates in the country. We are also the UK’s largest referring unit for the pancreatic transplants – one of only six hospitals in England to provide islet transplantation.

More than 430 patients receive dialysis at Southmead Hospital Bristol or one of our satellite units in Bath, Weston-super-Mare, Southmead, South Bristol, Taunton and Frome or our dialysis centre at the Cossham Hospital in Kingswood.

We are also leading the way in home dialysis treatment, offering patients the option of dialysing at home with a dedicated team of staff to support them.

Our paediatric transition service helps young people make the often difficult move from treatment at children’s facilities to the adult facilities at Southmead.

The service has a superb national and international reputation and is the only hospital outside of London to have had two consecutive presidents of the Renal Association working with us. We have a dedicated team of nurses, doctors and transplant co-ordinators to ensure all patients have the best experience we can offer.

North Bristol NHS Trust is a regional centre of excellence in plastic and reconstructive surgery.

The service at Southmead Hospital Bristol is one of the largest in England providing a highly specialised team experienced in the most complex cases.

Its core specialities are:

• Burns
• Hand surgery
• Lower limb
• Breast reconstruction
• Skin cancer
• Soft tissue sarcoma
• Head and neck cancer
• Bristol Laser Centre
• Cleft lip and palate

The co-location of regional specialties of neurosurgery and orthopaedics alongside plastics makes Southmead Hospital Bristol a key centre for trauma with access to experts in complex cases.

Patient care is a focus for the department with five clinical nurse specialists offering support for patients following surgery as well as a rehabilitation programme.

The core team of 52 clinical staff includes a clinical psychologist for patients with disfigurement through the Outlook service as well as speech and language therapists.

The service sees around 8,500 inpatients a year and 37,000 outpatients from across the region.

It carries out more than 150 micro-vascular reconstructions a year.

The Skin Cancer Centre provides an integrated service under the same roof, providing high quality care to more than 2,000 patients a year.

Southmead Hospital Bristol

Brunel building

• M&S Food outlet, Level 1, Brunel building. Open Monday to Friday 7am-8.30pm and weekends & bank holidays 8am-8.30pm. Offers sandwiches, bakery items, snacks, drinks, fresh fruit packaged goods and toiletries.
• Costa Coffee Shops, Level 1, Brunel building. There is a large Costa Coffee Shop that is open on Monday to Friday from 6.30am to 6pm and on Saturday & Sunday from 8am to 6pm. There is also a smaller Costa Coffee Shop which is open on Monday to Friday from 8am to 6.30pm and on Saturday from 9am to 3pm.
• The League of Friends Coffee Shop, Level 1, near Gate 36, Brunel building. Open Monday to Thursday 10am-7pm, Friday 10am to 5pm and weekends 2pm-5pm.
• Vending machine, Emergency Department, Gate 35, Level 0 offers drinks, snacks and sandwiches.

Maternity Services

• The Willow Coffee Shop, near Maternity Services Reception. Open 7am-3pm Monday to Friday
• There are vending machines available. 

Cossham Hospital

• The League of Friends Coffee Shop is located in the main reception area, Level 1. Open Monday to Friday 9am-4pm.

Bereavement Services

We are so very sorry for the loss of your relative or friend. The time after bereavement can be difficult and distressing. Our Patient Affairs Team will help guide you through the next steps of registering the death and the process of returning any personal belongings to you.

Our Patient Affairs Team will contact you via telephone the next working day to provide guidance and answer any queries you may have. If you would like to contact the Patient Affairs team, they are available Monday to Friday 8am - 4pm. You can call them on 0117 414 0184 or send an email to nbbs@nbt.nhs.uk.

Please provide your name, contact details and name of the deceased. If the telephone is not answered you can leave a message, and someone will call you back as soon as possible.

Funeral arrangements

You may wish to contact and appoint a funeral director before collecting the Certificate of Cause of Death. The funeral director will require the certificate for Burial or cremation (Green Form) which is issued by the Registry office.

Financial assistance toward the cost of the funeral may be available if you or your partner is receiving Income Support, Family Credit or Housing Benefit. For more information, please visit www.gov.uk/funeral-payments or telephone 0800 731 0469.

Cremation

If a cremation is planned the hospital will arrange for a doctor to sign the cremation form. The funeral director will require this form to finalise arrangements and will collect it directly from the hospital.

Viewing

We can organise viewings of the deceased with permission from the next of kin here at North Bristol Trust.

To arrange a viewing, please contact Mortuary Services on 0117 414 1700.

Medical examiner

Following a bereavement, many families seek reassurance that their loved one was properly cared for in hospital and want to understand the circumstances surrounding their death.

The Medical Examiner service has been introduced in England and Wales to increase understanding and peace of mind for families, as well as improve learning and patient safety in hospital by providing a review of care.

Medical Examiners are independent senior doctors who have not been involved in the care of the person who has died. Talking with a Medical Examiner can help you to understand the cause and circumstances of death. It also provides an opportunity to discuss any issues, concerns, or feedback regarding care that you may have with an independent team.

The Medical Examiners and Medical Examiner Officers work closely alongside existing Bereavement Services. If you would like to get in touch, please call the Medical Examiner Office and a member of our team would be happy to speak to you.

Contact details

The Sanctuary (Gate 30, Level One), Brunel Building, Southmead Hospital

Office hours – 8.30am - 4.30pm

0117 414 3447 or 0117 414 3448

Looking ahead

The time ahead may be a very difficult one for you. If you have any further questions, please contact a member of the Patient Affairs team.

Respectful Listening

Being a patient or a family member or carer of a patient in hospital can trigger a range of thoughts, feelings, concerns, and experiences. You may find it helpful to talk to someone who can listen to you and offer non-clinical support while you are in hospital. Staff and volunteers may also find it helpful to talk to someone who can provide a confidential listening ear.

Spiritual, Pastoral and Religious Care Practitioners, also called Chaplains, can spend time listening to you and help you to reflect on personal matters or difficult decisions. Subject to your consent they can help raise awareness with the staff involved in your care, of your religious beliefs, life values, decisions, and needs so that you are respected and cared for in a way that is right for you personally. This may include concerns about medications, treatment, diet, ablutions, prayer, and other religious rites or observations. If something is important to you, which affects your care and stay in hospital we want to know.

The chaplaincy team has an inclusive, respectful, and accepting approach and support is available to everyone without discrimination regardless of any personal identity or characteristic. This includes but is not exclusive to age, disability, sex, sexual orientation, gender identity, maternal status, ethnicity or diversity of religion, belief and non-belief. Chaplains come from a range of faith and belief backgrounds. They will not impose their beliefs on anyone, and you do not have to be religious to receive their support.

We welcome faith and belief representatives and leaders into the hospital to support patients, relatives and staff. If you have a priest, minister, pastor, imam, or other person from your own faith or belief community who can provide care for you in hospital, they are very welcome.

Religious Support       

Chaplains provide or facilitate religious rites and rituals including prayer appropriate to each person’s beliefs and situation. They can contact representatives for a range of faith and belief groups who may be able to provide religious care for people while in hospital. The department has a range of religious resources which help to support faith needs. 

Sanctuary                                             

The Sanctuary can be found at Gate 30 on Level 1 of the Brunel Building at Southmead Hospital. Everyone is welcome! The Sanctuary offers a place for quiet, reflection, meditation, prayer, and worship. It is for people of any or no faith. It is a space open for patients, their family and carers, visitors, staff and volunteers to come at any time. 

There is a larger sanctuary and a smaller sanctuary. Both spaces may be used so if one is in use, please feel free to use the alternative space. Both sanctuaries are multi-faith spaces so please respect others who may follow a different path to your own. We do not ask for silence but please be sensitive to others who share this space. 

Please feel free to write prayer requests in the prayer book in the Sanctuary or on the notice board outside Gate 30.