Neuro-trauma Client Liason Managers
Our Neuro-trauma Team recognised the importance of developing the role of a 'Client Liaison Manager'. This involved bringing into the team individuals with relevant experience of working with neuro-trauma survivors to work with clients (children and adults) in a supportive role, aiding rehabilitation whilst their claims are being pursued.
The client liaison service provides a range of services within the neuro trauma teams including -
- Assessment of immediate and longer term needs - highlighting areas of need and coordinating services and support for clients and their families where appropriate.
- Providing support and education to client and their carers regarding the implications of their changed lifestyle as a consequence of the catastrophic injury.
- Liaison with local services, professionals and agencies regarding ongoing care programmes and ongoing rehabilitation issues.
- Monitoring rehabilitation to maintain a consistent coordinated approach.
- Advice and assistance with benefits applications, reviews and appeals.
- Seamless handover to case management services once funds are available and where appropriate.
Sarah Hanlon
Sarah Head
Anne Luttman-Johnson
Sally Wilkinson
Sarah Hanlon is a qualified nurse for people with learning disabilities and has worked within a brain injury rehabilitation centre, and as a case manager with people who have sustained catastrophic injuries. She is based in the Birmingham office.
As soon as contact is initiated via I.M's solicitors, they involve Sarah. She will arrange a visit to the client and their family at their earliest convenience to ascertain what the immediate needs are of the injured person.
Being involved from a very early stage means that she is able to provide practical support to the client and their family when they are most in need. She has a wide knowledge of the relevant statutory, public and voluntary agencies available to assist clients, and coordinates any services being provided. She liaises with treating professionals, ensuring that the client is in receipt of all that they are entitled to until funds have been secured to appoint to an independent case manager.
Case Study
"Amy is nineteen years old and has sustained a severe head injury as a result of a road traffic accident. Amy's solicitor asked Sarah to meet with her and her family to offer support, at which stage she was still in a hospital setting. The initial visit it was apparent that Amy required specialist brain injury rehabilitation. Whilst Sarah was in the process of arranging meetings to discuss negotiating funding from the local PCT for Amy to be transferred to a more suitable environment, she referred her for an assessment from the wheelchair services.
Within time the PCT agreed that Amy required rehabilitation and agreed to fund her place at a specialist centre. Some funds were also secured through her claim and Sarah has arranged for her to have private therapy in the interim whilst waiting for a bed to be available. Once additional funds were obtainable Sarah referred Amy to an independent case manager who will continue to work with her and her family through the rehabilitation process.
Sarah Head is Irwin Mitchell's Public and Voluntary Sector Liaison Manager. She is responsible for developing and maintaining links with organisations providing support for clients in the public and voluntary sector. She provides information about services and policies to both fee earners and clients to enable them to access appropriate care.
Jonathan Betts, one of our PI lawyers in Manchester asked Sarah to help Tom, a young man with acquired brain injury, who was living at home with his elderly parents. Tom used to be a keen bird watcher, but since his accident, he no longer had the confidence to go out on his own and take part in any activities. Sarah gave Tom and his father the contact details for their local Headway support groups and also the local branch of the RSPB to see if they might support Tom in resuming his original hobby.
Case Study
Kieran suffered a severe spinal injury during a car accident. He was taken by air ambulance to the local Accident and Emergency Unit which dealt with spinal injuries and looked after in their Intensive Care Unit for over a week. Although the ICU staff were very caring and did everything they could for his injury, they did not have an effective policy for tissue management. After several days, Kieran developed a pressure sore. He was not turned regularly. When he was transferred to the High Dependency Unit, staff were so busy, they did not manage his pressure sore either.
When Kieran was transferred to the specialist spinal injury unit in the region, his pressure sore was so deep, he had to stay in bed and was not able to begin his rehabilitation programme for several months.
Kieran and his family were very upset that nursing staff in the Acute Hospital had not managed his skin care properly, allowing him to develop such a deep pressure sore. They wanted to make a complaint to the Hospital Trust but weren't sure how to go about it. Their solicitor, Nicola Gunderson in the Birmingham office of IM, asked Sarah if she would help them with their complaint.
The family drew up a detailed description of what happened to Kieran and Sarah put it into a letter for them to send to the Trust. Sarah also told them who to write to and explained how the NHS complaints process worked.
Sarah edits the Newsletter, "IM Touching Base", aimed at families with special needs children. She also develops and produces leaflets and resource packs for clients, fee earners and external organisations. Such leaflets include "Frequently Asked Questions about NHS Complaints", "Guidance for Families attending Inquests" and "Helping you Sleep". She can also provide customised packs for clients who have been bereaved or require information about specialist support services such as counselling or other support.
Sarah provides training courses both internally and externally. She is currently delivering courses on NHS complaints and developing coping strategies for dealing with loss, dying and bereaved clients. She also offers sessions on Continuing Care, Mental Capacity Act, Introduction to Inquests, Managing NHS Complaints and What to do when the person you care for is in hospital.
Anne Luttman-Johnson sustained a spinal cord injury over twenty years ago while she was studying for a law degree. After spending six months in Salisbury Spinal Injuries Centre she returned to her studies and qualified as a solicitor.
Anne left private practice to work for the Spinal Injuries Association as their Legal Claims Officer, helping newly injured people and their families obtain legal advice from specialist firms. Working for this charity helped Anne increase her knowledge of disability through her contact with many other disabled people.
Part of Anne's role was working as an expert witness advising the courts on the cost of disability in spinal cord injury claims. Eventually she left the charity to concentrate on doing this full time. She is therefore very aware of the difficulties disabled people face in trying to obtain good advice when buying equipment or accessing services.
Working for Irwin Mitchell enables Anne to put all her knowledge and experience to practical use. Not only does she advise our clients on the equipment and services available, but she also helps them to access these, either through statutory services or by private purchase.
For example Anne has been able to help clients to buy a suitable car, to obtain direct payments to cover the cost of child care, to successfully appeal a refusal of benefits, to find a suitable property to rent so that someone could be discharged from hospital etc.
As a wheelchair user Anne finds her personal experience of disability helps her to empathise with her clients and reassures them that she does understand what they are going through.
Anne has also been able to assist members of the firm by providing information that they can pass on to their clients on disability issues, such as details of Wheelchair Services across the country to enable clients to access the equipment that they need for their mobility.
Case Study
Javid was a talented footballer, who arrived in the UK from a small African country seeking asylum and with the hope of perhaps becoming a professional footballer. Shortly after arriving here, and before his asylum claim had been determined, he was involved in a road traffic accident, breaking his back at T4. He was taken to one of the UK's leading Spinal Injury Centres, where he was treated for his injuries and rehabilitated.
While he was in hospital Javid instructed Muiris Lyons, a partner in the London office, and an expert in handling complex spinal injury claims. Although Javid had been a passenger in the car the case was not straightforward because the driver was not insured to drive the vehicle, and after the accident he disappeared and could not be traced.
To add to his difficulties Javid then received a letter from the Home Office refusing his application for asylum. One result of this refusal was that no Local Authority would accept responsibility for re-housing Javid. The discharge co-ordinator at the hospital did not know how to progress this. Muiris therefore asked Anne to get involved.
Anne firstly worked with the hospital discharge team to try and persuade a Local Authority to take responsibility, quoting case law on this subject, although the difficulty here was that Javid had not lived in any one particular place in this country for any length of time. When it became obvious that Local Authority accommodation would not be provided without a lengthy battle, and possibly court proceedings, and Javid was ready to be discharged from hospital, Anne started to look for suitable properties for Javid to rent.
Muiris was able to persuade the Defendants to make a substantial voluntary interim payment, despite the fact that liability issues had been raised and the driver of the car had not been traced. Anne went and viewed many properties on Javid's behalf, as he was stuck in hospital without the necessary transport. Finally a suitable property was identified and Javid was able to be discharged to a place of his own.
Anne was also able to help Javid to buy the furniture and furnishings that he needed for his flat, as well as advising him on specialist disability equipment, such as a seat to enable him to get in and out of the bath and a padded toilet seat. She also helped him to buy a lightweight wheelchair and a specialist wheelchair for basketball.
Javid has also been provided with advice on his status, and his appeal to the Home Office has been running alongside his personal injury claim.
Anne and Muiris continue to work closely together as Javid's claim continues.
Sally Wilkinson, who is based in our Sheffield and Leeds offices, is a registered general nurse with 26 years experience of nursing.
Following her initial training at St James's University Hospital in Leeds she went on to work as a staff nurse in the department of elderly medicine gaining experience in stroke rehabilitation.
She later qualified as a registered mental nurse and particularly enjoyed working with people with long term mental health problems as they prepared to return to independent living in the community.
Sally Wilkinson went on to manage the Younger Disabled Unit at Chapel Allerton Hospital Leeds in 1988. The unit provided care and maintenance rehabilitation for clients with degenerative neurological conditions as well as patients undergoing rehabilitation following stroke, brain and spinal injuries.
The unit provided at the time slow stream rehabilitation and long term care. Sally was instrumental in developing a rehabilitation service with a higher turn over of patients and securing additional resources to support clients and their families both within the unit and within the community. The service was designed so that clients could rotate between their own homes and attend the unit for blocks of maintenance rehabilitation. The unit moved to a community site to facilitate this rehabilitation philosophy and was renamed the Community Rehabilitation Unit.
She worked as part of a multidisciplinary team assessing clients and being involved in the setting up of comprehensive care packages to include the levels of nursing care required, physiotherapy, occupational therapy, speech and language and social care.
In 1989 Sally completed a six week intensive study and research course in Southampton and gained ENB certificate 913 in Rehabilitation Nursing.
She was involved in nurse training and mentoring whilst in charge of the unit and qualified as an adult education tutor after completing training at Leeds College of Technology.
In 1990 Sally Wilkinson commenced a part time degree course in community nursing studies. She completed this successfully achieving both a Diploma and a Bachelor of Science. She also completed certificates in counselling theory and practice.
After leaving the Community Rehabilitation Unit in 1998 Sally Wilkinson went on to work as a family support specialist nurse within the Leeds Head Injury Team. The team was a community based, multidisciplinary team providing rehabilitation and support to clients and their families following traumatic brain injury. This provided her with valuable experience in assessment and management of individual clients and their families with complex needs.
Her interest and knowledge of brain injury and the impact it has upon a client's independence and lifestyle continues to grow and develop.
She is also a Relate counsellor having completed several training courses and counselling sessions at the Leeds centre. She also has an interest and experience in bereavement counselling.
On a personal level in 1998 her older brother was involved in a major road traffic accident and sustained serious head and orthopaedic injuries. She therefore has ongoing and valuable life experience of catastrophic disability.
She joined Irwin Mitchell in 2004 as client liaison manager.
Case Study
Billy was injured in a road traffic accident in May 2004. He was a passenger in a car where the other occupants unfortunately died.
He sustained a severe brain injury and was treated on a neurosurgical unit before being transferred home to wait for a bed to become available on a neuro-rehabilitation ward. When a bed became available, Billy decided to remain at home, rather than go back into hospital. He was referred to the local community brain injury rehabilitation service, but failed to engage and was therefore discharged.
Initially, Billy received a high level of support from his partner and family, but these relationships broke down over time. His family had arranged for suitable accommodation prior to the relationship breakdown and he was therefore living independently.
Sally became involved initially to assist Billy with transportation to medical appointments, as he was unable to find his own way independently, due to his cognitive problems. It became clear however that all Billy's welfare benefits had been terminated as he had not responded to correspondence. Billy had not been able to rectify the situation.
Sally was able to assist him to apply for all benefits he should be eligible for, and to reinstate all benefits which had been terminated, this included advocating on his behalf in DSS medical appointments. As Billy had previously been discharged from statutory services, this option was no longer available to him, Angela was therefore able to instruct, appoint and hand-over to a specialist case manager to co-ordinate a privately funded rehabilitation programme.
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