Brain Injury Specialist Clinic

About our service

BISC provides assessment and advice for adults with an Acquired Brain Injury (ABI) including strokes and Traumatic Brain Injury (TBI).

 

 

Who is the service for?

The clinic is open to all adults (over the age of 16) who live in areas across the West Midlands, and who have had an acquired brain injury such as:

• a traumatic brain injury (resulting from a car accident, fall or assault for example)
• a stroke
• a sub-arachnoid haemorrhage
• an infection in the brain
• hypoxia.

 

 

Referral Process

Referrals can be made by any health and social care professional, patients themselves, carers or voluntary agencies (such as Headway or the Stroke Association). Referrals should be in writing, and addressed to the BISC team at Moor Green, Moseley Hall Hospital, Moseley, Birmingham, B13 8JL or if you would like to email, please call 0121 466 6070 to ask for the secretary’s email address.

 

When we get a referral, we might ask your GP or hospital consultant to provide us with a little more information.

 

If you would like to make a referral:

Brain Injury Specialist Clinic referral form

 

 

What will happen in the clinic?

Patients and their carers are invited to a clinic appointment, where they will be interviewed by relevant members of the BISC team.

 

Members of the team include:

• Consultants in rehabilitation medicine
• Occupational therapist (team lead)
• Physiotherapist
• Clinical psychologist
• Speech and language therapist
• Medical secretary/clinic co-ordinator

 

Depending on your needs, and the availability of staff, you will usually be seen during an initial appointment by two or three members of the team.

 

 

What we do at an assessment?

Your initial appointment could be via video, telephone or face to face. It could last for about an hour and you will be asked a number of questions relating to all possible areas of difficulty following a brain injury. Not all the areas will be relevant to you, but your responses will give the team a good understanding of what your needs are. The clinic does not have facilities to perform any diagnostic tests.

 

Once the team has gathered your answers, they will meet briefly to discuss what you have told them, and will make some recommendations for what should happen next. These recommendations will be discussed with you before you leave the clinic.

 

The answers you give to the questions in clinic will form the basis of your clinic report. The team’s recommendations will also be included on the report.

 

 

What happens after the assessment?

This depends very much on what recommendations were made during the clinic. A number of possible recommendations could be made, including:

• Specialist advice and information could be given to the client, carer or other agencies (such as college, work, social services) either on the day, or through subsequent appointments
• Referral to appropriate services for further rehabilitation, vocational training and support could be arranged including a period of rehabilitation in other services offered by the Rehabilitation directorate such as Moor Green Out Patient Brain Injury Service or outside agencies such as Headway, Stroke Association or community services in your local area.
• Short term intervention by various members of the BISC team (usually involving four to six further appointments)
• Extended assessments might also be conducted by members of the team in order to provide more information about your difficulties.

 

 

Reviews

Often people attend only for one appointment and do not need any further involvement from the BISC team. At times, however, we may ask people to return in the following months for a review. Reviews can either be purely medical in nature, when you will meet only the Consultant in Rehabilitation Medicine, or team reviews where you will meet other members of the team. These reviews will mainly follow on from when we have offered advice or recommendations, or provided extended assessments or brief interventions.