Respiratory Physiotherapy Team

Service detail

Critical care and outreach physiotherapy combined service

The Respiratory Physiotherapy Team covers intensive care and the high dependency unit (combined - 20-bed unit), as well as providing an outreach respiratory service on the acute wards for patients who have ongoing respiratory needs or a tracheostomy (breathing tube). The team ensures all patients are seen for daily respiratory chest treatments and rehabilitation as required.

Physiotherapists 

Physiotherapists work to help remove secretions from a patient’s chest and help ensure the lungs remain clear, reducing the risk of infection whilst a patient is on a ventilator. Whilst a patient is sedated, the Physiotherapy Team will move their arms and legs to assess for changes in joint stiffness and tone and help maintain range of movement. Once a patient is awake, they are able to start a rehabilitation programme to allow the muscles to become stronger and promote independence once more. Physiotherapists will identify respiratory and physical problems and set regular goals for patients to optimise independence.

Physiotherapists also help patients wean off ventilators and aim to remove tracheostomies once a patient is ready. There is a daily MDT tracheostomy ward round on ITU to explore tracheostomy weaning, optimise secretion management. Speech and language therapists assess swallow and communication. Therapists identify early on if a patient has ongoing multidisciplinary rehabilitation needs and referral to an appropriate rehabilitation destination, for example the Cheshire and Merseyside Rehabilitation Network.

Discharge 

Once a patient is ready for discharge to the ward, if they still have ongoing respiratory/secretion clearance needs the respiratory team with continue with their chest and rehabilitation care to help with this transition and continuity of care.

We work closely with outreach nurses (SMART Team) and Speech and Language Therapists to continue daily tracheostomy ward rounds for ongoing tracheostomy weaning and chest clearance on the acute wards and Lipton Ward (hyper-acute rehabilitation). We also provide respiratory care for any patient that requires this across all wards at The Walton Centre.

The respiratory physiotherapy team also attends the weekly ITU MDT meetings to discuss patients with complex ventilator/tracheostomy weaning and rehabilitation needs, Lipton MDT and neurovascular MDT.

We provide a respiratory service weekdays 8am - 8pm, and at weekends/bank holidays 8am - 4pm.