We aim to provide excellent health care for all older people, particularly those who have long term conditions and may be vulnerable due to frailty or dementia.
Supporting older people to maintain their independence, and have more choice and control over their well-being is an extremely important part of their care. We do all we can to help them to stay active and enjoy the best quality of life possible whilst in our care.
One strength of our service is our multidisciplinary team working. This means we have lots of different experts on hand to provide specialist input to our patients’ care. These can be:
- doctors
- nurses
- physiotherapists
- occupational therapists
- social workers
- dietitians
- psychologists, and
- speech and language therapists
This approach allows us to tackle complex medical and functional needs through a patient-centred approach.
We also work closely with our colleagues in our community services and with GPs and district nurses as one of our main objectives is to keep patients in their own home, or place of residence wherever possible.
Our services
Our services are designed and located in the best places for our patients. They include:
Acute inpatient care
We have a number hospital based wards where patients who need care and treatment straight away.
Hospital based rehabilitation
We provide specialist rehabilitation for patients following a stroke or bone fracture at Freeman Hospital.
Day units
Our older people day unit is called Belsay located on the Campus for Ageing Vitality. Here we offer rapid access appointments and comprehensive assessment clinics, often preventing hospital admissions.
Community outreach
We build on our strong partnerships with all services involved in older people’s health and social care.
Specialist support
We have many older people experts who specialise in a range of conditions associate with older health:
- Falls and syncope service
- Orthopaedics and trauma service
- Pre and peri-operative management of older people on surgical wards
- Dementia and delirium service
- Consultation service for advice and support
- Liaison to vascular surgery and neurosurgery wards
- Frailty intervention team who assess older people admitted to the Assessment Suite
Research
Many of our clinical staff also work at Newcastle University which has a Clinical Ageing Research Unit. They carry out a great deal of research into conditions associated with ageing, bringing new knowledge to clinical practice ensuring we can offer the very best care for our patients.
Many of our patients are very happy to take part in research and this is a great example of how we are putting patients at heart of everything we do.
The key research themes at the Clinical Ageing Research Unit are:
- Dementia
- Parkinson’s Disease and other Parkinsonisms
- Other Neurodegenerative Diseases
- Liver Disease
- Musculoskeletal Disease
- Neuromuscular Disease
- Skin and Oral Disease
You can find out more about how research and teaching is central to everything we do in our Research and teaching section.
Contact
Dr Jane Noble is Head of our Older People’s Department. She can be contacted via her secretary:
Telephone: 0191 282 6567
