Our outpatient physiotherapy team has had a busy twelve months revamping their supervised exercise classes. 

They have developed a new exercise session process, incorporating a falls element to help reduce the risk of incidents. The changes were introduced after a patient sustained a fall during one of the classes. 

Outpatient Physiotherapy Team Leader, Lindsay Hawker said “The incident made us review the process right from referral to the exercise class. As a result, floor plans were created and all colleagues now know what to expect at each location with each class so that any challenges are supported to prevent the incident happening again.”

The department currently runs eight different types of classes across six different locations within CHFT.  Each class can accommodate up to 12 patients with two supervising and supporting members of the therapy team.

Colleagues undertook a very detailed and thorough investigation exploring the whole patient journey from referral to participation within the class.

They looked at aspects such as class documentation, environmental risk assessments, risk assessments for each exercise (one class has potential for up to 30 different exercises!), generic referral forms incorporating the  identification of patients at risk of falling, class set up check lists, floor plans for each class per site, index of exercises and development of new exercise programmes.

The changes to practice will minimise the risk of incidents, improve patient care and experience and standardise practise within the sessions across the full service. This will lead to improved safety and quality for the patient.

Clinical Lead Physiotherapist, Karl Gray added: “The referral process has been made easier and we have risk assessed every stage to improve safety and minimise risk.”

Videos of several exercise programmes are on the team's internet page and CHFT’s YouTube page so that patients can access these from home, should they need a reminder and demonstration of what to do.

Lessons learned as a result of the incident have been fed back to the wider therapy services so that they too can incorporate the new changes into their teams.