Hospital hydrotherapy pool treatments continue for 'beach ready' patients

The Dudley Group NHS Foundation Trust has worked with regulators to ensure it could carry on seeing patients at the pool safely, helping to speed up their recovery.

The pool, one of very few in the Midlands region, is used by people recovering from lower limb injuries, multi trauma caused by car accidents, mums-to-be with pelvic girdle pain and children with fractures and dislocations.

It’s also used to help neurological patients – it is hoped the trust will be able to welcome them back to the pool in the summer.

Caroline Swain, clinical specialist physiotherapist, said: “We were able to open the pool back up in October, having closed last March, following advice from the Chartered Society of Physiotherapists.

“We are seeing less patients overall but it’s a really safe environment and patients are delighted to have their treatments.

“Instead of having six patients in the pool at once we have three, and we have two sessions in a morning and two in an afternoon.

“Patients come ‘beach ready’ with their swimming stuff on under their clothes and we ask them to have had a shower within an hour before, and shower again when they get home. They wear a mask in the pool because they are not swimming.

"They are screened before they come in and research by Imperial College London has shown that the virus only lasts 30 seconds in chlorine, under the right conditions.”

With social distancing, enhanced cleaning and other Covid measures reducing the number of patients seen, the service has also had to cope with staff having been redeployed to Covid wards at the height of the pandemic.

Caroline said that they were now back up to full strength with staffing, and as more elective procedures were carried out, they expected to see more and more patients referred to them.

James Aust of Wombourne received six treatment sessions in the hydro-pool after suffering a bad break in his leg, in his tibula and fibula and by the knee joint. The 49- year-old said it had made a “world of difference” to his recovery.

He said: “I had my leg operated on, plated and with eight screws, and was non weight-bearing for seven or eight weeks. I’m physically active so sitting around doing nothing was my worst nightmare. Being able to go to the pool and doing stretches and exercises was fab. It definitely speeded up my recovery.

“I didn’t have any concerns about the situation with Covid – Russells Hall Hospital has been fabulous, we had masks, everything was so clean; there was no time I was concerned.”

Diane Wake, chief executive of The Dudley Group NHS Foundation Trust, said: “The therapy offered in our hydro pool is a good example of how hard staff have worked to ensure we keep doing all we can for our patients, despite Covid.

“The team has shown what determination to find a solution, and put our patients first, can do. We’re really lucky to have this facility in Dudley and I’m glad that it has continued to be put to good use.”