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Patients denied treatment as acquired brain injury slips down NHS priority list

9 March 2007

People with Acquired Brain Injury (ABI) are being denied appropriate treatment as the National Health Service (NHS) reneges on its promise to improve services. Leonard Cheshire’s Head of ABI Services Amanda Swain is to highlight this gap in care at the All Parliamentary Parties Group meeting on 13 March to mark Brain Injury Week (12-18 March 2007).

ABI is one of the conditions identified by the NHS as needing improved services in its Better Metrics table. This means improvements should by now have been seen in services across the country. “But the worrying thing is that there is no sign that these good intentions are being followed through,” says Amanda Swain.

Quality of provision of ABI services around the country varies greatly. Centres like Leeds General Infirmary, where TV’s Richard Hammond was treated after his high speed accident, have superb neurology services. Other parts of the country are lagging behind. This means many patients are denied vital rehabilitation therapies during the first six months after their injury. “Too often these patients are left on the ward or sent to a nursing home where staff can’t cope with these sort of injuries.”

Mike Walters,39, was badly injured in June 2005 when he was knocked off his bike in a suspected hit and run accident. A brain injury damaged his speech and memory and left him unable to walk more than short distances. After several weeks in hospital, Mike was making so little progress that it was agreed he needed specialist support at Leonard Cheshire’s Arfon Acquired Brain Injury Unit in Colwyn Bay.

Mike is in no doubt that being in an ABI unit made all the difference to his recovery. Mike is now back at home, where he takes his dog for walks every day. He has just passed his driving assessment, his ambition is to learn to drive a truck and go back to work. Mike says: “If I had gone into a nursing home, I think I would still be there. But Leonard Cheshire gave me my life back.”

“ABI’s slipped off the agenda,” says Amanda Swain, who is also chair of the UK ABI Forum’s (UKABIF) Education, Information and Standards Committee. “It means missed opportunity for people with brain injuries which impact every area of their lives.”

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For more information please contact Sally Clark in the Leonard Cheshire Media and PR team on: 020 7802 8267 or email:

Editors Notes

• Brain Injury Week is 12th-18th March 2007.

• ABI rehabilitation services was part of the scoping of the National Service Framework (NSF).

• The NHS Better Metrics table identifies ABI as one of the conditions where improved services are needed.

• Leonard Cheshire (www.leonard-cheshire.org) exists to change attitudes to disability and to serve disabled people around the world. It has been supporting disabled people for almost 60 years and is active in 52 countries. The charity directly supports over 21,000 disabled people in the UK.

• Leonard Cheshire is a ‘2006 Sunday Times 20 Best Big Companies to Work For’ organisation.