Dr. Niall Pender:

I echo what Ms Rogers said. This is part of a stream of care. It is international best practice. We see it all over the world. This model is well-established and has been shown to be very cost effective, as well as effective in reducing neuro-disability. When looking at the totality of neurological and neurosurgical conditions, one can imagine somebody who is diagnosed with a neurodegenerative disease like motor neuron disease, Huntington's disease or another condition and the utter devastation for that person and his or her family on getting such a diagnosis. One can also think of somebody who has had a head injury or a stroke, somebody who came off a bicycle and suffered concussion and so on. We have to encapsulate all of the care for all of those people. At this moment in time, all of those people are discharged from really good acute hospital care - under-funded and under-resourced but really good quality care - and they are lost. They are lost to the system. They are lost to themselves and they do not know where they are going or who to go to. There is no other disease where that happens, where patients are discharged from acute care and are sent off into the community to find the care themselves. This is what is happening. We have people struggling with neurological injuries and disabilities of various kinds who are trying to fight for their own care. Their relatives are also trying to fight for their care.

The purpose of the streams that we have is that people would be discharged to the community team, they will get their 12-week programme but they will also link in with a team of experts who can guide and help them, point them in the right direction and give them their treatment. The teams will essentially be the hub for their care in the future, in terms of referring on and referring into the voluntary organisations which are currently desperately trying to hold the line. Many of these voluntary organisations are under-resourced and have massive waiting lists themselves because they are bearing the brunt of the lack of community services. Hopefully, the community teams will act as a hub for all of those people, whether they have had neurological, neurodegenerative, or neurosurgical events. The teams will be able to support their care in the community.