Our Interface Team are a team of Occupational Therapists, Physiotherapists and Assistant Practitioners who provide rapid assessment of patient’s functional abilities, with the aim of preventing admission to hospital.

The team are based at Sunderland Royal Hospital and work in areas such as:

  • Emergency Department
  • Ambulatory Care
  • Pallion Walk-in Centre
  • Integrated Assessment Unit
  • Outpatient areas
  • Our admissions ward, where patients may come in to hospital short term

Patients attending these areas may be referred to the Interface Team if there are any concerns about how they will manage at home, or if their mobility is impaired due to illness, accident or injury. 

You can spot members of our team as they will be wearing a teal tunic and black trousers.

What to expect

The team will:

  • Ask how you were managing at home
  • Look at how you manage walking and getting on and off the bed and toilet
  • Use this information to make judgements as to how you will manage at home

Care in the community

The team are can also be called upon to assess patients in their own homes, if they do not need to come into hospital. For these visits, patients are visited at home and assessed to see how they are managing.  The  team will provide any necessary equipment and support that the patients need or for those unable to manage, they may be able to refer for short term carers. Some patients need intensive therapy or nursing input and our Interface Team may recommend that the patient goes into a bed based rehabilitation facility.

The team also complete some specific work in patients homes, with patient’s who have fallen trying to prevent patients from falling again. The team assess how patient’s manage at home and taking into consideration the home environment and whether anything within the home could be a cause of falls.

You may then be offered mobility aids or assistive equipment and those requiring further support may be referred for assistance for when they return home, or if patients require further rehabilitation.  This may be provided in the patient’s home from community teams or in a local bed based rehabilitation facility.

The Interface Team also have a Community Physiotherapy service attached to it, for patients who require physiotherapy but are housebound and unable to attend out-patient appointments.

Referrals

The Interface Team accept referrals between 0800 & 1930 and our service is open 7 days a week

Contact us

01915699810