Five year celebration for ARTU

The Acute Rehabilitation and Trauma Unit (ARTU) at University Hospitals of North Midlands is celebrating five years of successful service, helping hundreds of patients in their recovery following a major trauma.

To help mark the occasion, ward teams showcased some of the many success stories from the past 12 months, and staff also hosted a covid-secure birthday celebration for its team and staff interested in acute rehabilitation with one previous patient returning to thank the team for his care.

25 year-old Patient Chance Bright from Chesterton suffered major injuries after a road traffic accident in 2019 which left him paralysed from the waist down and was a patient on the unit for more than six months, he said: “I just want to thank the unit for the care I received when I was recovering, the entire team are amazing and I got to see first-hand the fantastic work they do for all patients and not just myself. I couldn’t have recovered as well as I did without them.”

ARTU Senior Staff Nurse for Quality, Leanne Allcock said: “When the unit first opened in 2016, we only had 10 beds and now five years later we are a 27 bed unit. One of the key benefits of the unit has been the ability for patient rehabilitation to start from day-one of their care. We have had some patients stay with us up to a year, receiving some intense therapy and rehabilitation and we wanted to do something to celebrate the many patients we have helped to recover and achieve their rehabilitation goals and successes.”

The Unit is designed for patients who require acute care following stabilisation from intensive care, theatres or the emergency department following trauma. The 27-bed ARTU is situated on the Royal Stoke University Hospital site and was one of the first hyper-acute specialised rehabilitation units to be developed within a Major Trauma Centre. This service enables early rehabilitation input, which helps patients achieve their maximum potential for physical, cognitive, social and psychological function as they recover.

ARTU forms part of the UHNM Major Trauma Centre, which is one of the best in the country for survival rates.