Mr Glen Volker¹, Ms Anita  Plaza¹

¹Physiotherapy Department, Royal Brisbane and Women’s Hospital

Abstract:
The Royal Brisbane & Women’s Hospital currently has a dedicated position providing Outpatient Burns Physiotherapy service to the patients of the Professor Stuart Pegg Adult Burn Centre.  The position is responsible for providing ongoing specialist support, treatment and management for patients who have been discharged from the Burns Unit, or are managed through the Specialist Outpatient Burns Clinic and require further physiotherapy input.  This may be performed one to one in the physiotherapy department, via review in the Specialist Outpatient Burns Clinic, and/or by referring and liaising directly with treating physiotherapists in the patient’s local area.

This position has developed and progressed since its inception.  As part of a quality activity, we recently developed a ‘Patient Experience Survey’ to specifically assess the outpatient physiotherapy treatment service provided for this cohort.  As part of the survey we also collected certain demographic information, and added a section regarding exercise habits post discharge from the service.

The initial data collected shows a high level of satisfaction with the physiotherapy outpatient burns service, but has also highlighted variable degrees of ongoing exercise and stretching programs post discharge.

The purpose of this poster is to present the relevant information gained from the survey, to reflect on areas for improvement, and to provide potential options for further development of the service for the benefit of our patients.

Biography:
Senior Physiotherapist at the Royal Brisbane and Women’s Hospital (RBWH) currently working in the Outpatient Physiotherapy Burns role.  He has over 10 years of experience working in the burns and plastics units at the RBWH and at the Chelsea and Westminster Hospital in London, and was a past Treasurer of ANZBA.  He also spent 10 years as the Musculoskeletal Outpatient Physiotherapy Team Leader at the RBWH.