NMH

189 NMH | 2024 189 Health and Social Care Professionals Physiotherapy The Physiotherapy Team. T he Physiotherapy Department had its busiest year in 2024 with over 4,441 new patient referrals. Our referral activity remains consistently high since the introduction of MN-CMS with a two-fold increase. This demand drives the shape of our service leading to our increased provision of group classes to try and reach our service users in a timely way. We began the year with 6.7 Whole Time Equivalents (WTEs). We welcomed Erin Griffin onto the Neonatal Team in April 2024 to assist with the caseload due to the added demands of the 'Early Detection of Cerebral Palsy Project'; the Cerebral Palsy Foundation are funding a 0.5 physio post to assist with the delivery of this project from Neonatal Intensive Care Unit (NICU). In September, Aoife Cullen and Ciara Ryan returned from maternity leave bringing our WTE to 8.5. We continue to provide a 0.5 WTE to the Pelvic Floor Centre located in St. Michael's Hospital led by Lesley-Anne Ross who works alongside 2 NWIPH funded Pelvic Health Specialist Physiotherapists. The Physiotherapy Team provide: • A referral based service to all inpatients weekdays. • An outpatient clinic offering appointments on weekdays for musculoskeletal conditions and issues relating to pelvic floor dysfunction for antenatal and postnatal patients • A neonatal service within the Neonatal Intensive Care Unit and an outpatient service on weekdays. • Ongoing delivery of the Hospital's antenatal and postnatal education programmes alongside NMH colleagues • Undergraduate placements for UCD Physiotherapy Students. • A range of education sessions to facilitate early assessment and timely access to physiotherapy services e.g. Pelvic Girdle Pain Class, Pelvic Floor Care Class, Little Feet, Big Steps Class & Healthy Bodies after Birth Class • A service to the multidisciplinary Pelvic Floor Centre team based in St Michael's Hospital every Monday and Wednesday. We continue to initiate all adult referrals with a telehealth assessment to complete all subjective information gathering and dissemination of first line advice and guidance having a library of NMH resources at our disposal. Department activity is reviewed under 3 headings: Obstetrics, Gynaecology and Neonatology. Patients are seen either as inpatients, on the obstetric (pre and postnatal), gynaecology or neonatal units, or as outpatients in the Physiotherapy Department. Some patients may require just one visit; most will require a number of treatment sessions. Our Physiotherapy Department is located on the 2nd floor of 65 Mount St. Physiotherapy in Obstetrics We offer outpatient and inpatient physiotherapy to all obstetric patients. We treat a range of musculoskeletal and pelvic floor conditions during pregnancy and postnatally. The Physiotherapy in Obstetrics table below shows that bulk of obstetric patients are referred with back and pelvic pain. In order to facilitate reaching these patients in a timely way, we run virtual Back & Pelvic Care Information Sessions every Friday from 14-15.30. We run a monthly virtual Pregnancy Wellbeing Class focusing on physical care during pregnancy on the 2nd Friday of every month We also run a weekly virtual postnatal class every Friday at 11-12.30 titled Health Bodies After Birth

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