Meet our Active Hospitals Project Manager, Physiotherapist, Kaiten Patel, who is looking for colleagues involved in the care of our inpatients to help shape a programme across CHFT to embed physical activity into everything we do.

Kaiten is managing the two-year transformation programme. It is being funded through Sport England via Active Calderdale, though the programme will cover both of our hospitals.

He said: "As a Physiotherapist, I have seen how quickly patients can lose confidence, strength, and independence in hospital when movement isn't part of the rhythm of their care. My colleagues still see this every day.

"Through Active Hospitals, my goal is to embed physical activity into everything we do to support our patients, allowing people to leave our care as close as possible to the person they were when they came in, while supporting colleagues to champion their own active wellbeing." 

“The programme aims to embed physical activity into everyday culture, supporting colleagues, patients and visitors to remain mobile, maintain independence, and play an active role in their recovery and health improvement across both hospital sites. 

“We want to understand in our anonymous survey the real conditions that colleagues work in, what currently helps, what gets in the way, and what support would be most useful. 

“Colleagues' ideas will be vital in the development of the programme. There are no right answers, but honest responses, including where things are difficult or unclear, are the most useful."

The survey should take between 10-15 minutes to complete and will close on Sunday, 14th June. Colleagues who complete the survey are in with a chance to win one of three £30 vouchers in a prize draw. 

If you'd like to know more about Active Hospitals, please email Kaiten at kaiten.patel@cht.nhs.uk