TSJCI Annual Report 2021

Trinity St James’s Cancer Institute Annual Report 2021 24 Section 3.0 Health And Social Care Professions The SCOPe Health and Social Care Professions Directorate represents a subset of the HSCP workforce comprising Speech and Language Therapy (SLT), Social Work (SW), Clinical Nutrition and Dietetics (CND), Occupational Therapy (OT) and Physiotherapy (PT) services. Recent cancer care developments include: 3.1 Key Developments during 2021 Clinical Nutrition Department • A recent development in Clinical Nutrition is the introduction of a dedicated service to manage UGI surgery patients requiring home tube feeding. With this specialist input, feeding tube complications are managed, patients’ length of stay is reduced and admissions/ED visits are avoided. Medical Social Work Department Developments in the Social Work service include: • Weekly Chemo educations sessions for patients, completed in conjunction with the Irish Cancer Society Daffodil Centre. • Use of memory boxes and books with our oncology patients/their families as part of end of life interventions. Occupational Therapy Department • In response to COVID-19, the Occupational Therapy (OT) service successfully transitioned to a virtual platform and a hybrid model of virtual and face to face Out-patient Department (OPD) appointments was provided throughout 2021. • The OT-led OPTIMAL survivorship programme will be re-introduced as COVID-19 restrictions are eased. Physiotherapy Department • The newest Physiotherapy initiative is the development of a cancer rehabilitation service. Providing an exercise-based rehabilitation service to patients during and after cancer treatment, patients can now access individual assessments, treatment sessions and group exercise programmes with our cancer rehabilitation clinical specialist physiotherapist on- line and in-person. Speech and Language Therapy (SLT) Department • A redesign of the SLT head and neck cancer pathway has enabled the provision of rehabilitation and outreach services to head and neck cancer patients. • Prehabilitation includes a full communication and swallow assessment, pre-operative counselling and voice banking options. • Specialist outreach services enable early supported discharge for this patient group.