An online support scheme to help brain injury and stroke survivors has been boosted with additional funding.

This will enable people across Lancashire to continue accessing therapy and support from home.

The Lancashire and South Cumbria regional NeuroRehabilitation OnLine (NROL) programme, which is hosted by East Lancashire Hospitals NHS Trust (ELHT) and the University of Central Lancashire (UCLan) used online video sessions to provide specialist neurorehabilitation to brain injury and stroke survivors.

The scheme was created in winter 2020/21 because patients were limited in accessing face to face NHS treatment due to Covid restrictions and now more than 2,000 patients have been able to access the sessions from the comfort of their own homes thanks to funding from the charity SameYou.

The additional £169,000 secured from NHS England’s Stroke Quality Improvement Rehabilitation (SQuIRe) catalyst funding process will enable this vital resource to continue for a further 12 months.

The sessions show how ELHT is developing a “hospital without walls”, with care being provided in a place and time convenient to patients rather than within the traditional confines of a hospital building.

One patient the sessions have benefitted is Alyssa Havko, 33, who was diagnosed with a brain tumour when she was young. The shunt in Alyssa’s head stopped working in 2021 and she had to undergo surgery to fix it, with a long recovery period needed for physical and speech and language therapy.

She said: “After my recovery in hospital I was referred to NROL so I could continue my therapy at home. After my surgery I had to learn to walk again and this is exhausting, so having access to these sessions at home is ideal as I don’t have to leave the house and walk around busy buildings.

“It’s been almost 10 months since my surgery and one month since I finished my NROL programme and I couldn’t be more thankful for the team and the sessions they provide. One of my goals was to be able to walk my dog again and I’m now able to get out more – I just recently walked by dog to the top of the road.”

Louise Connell, professor or neurorehabilitation at ELHT and UCLan, said: “We’re really pleased we’ve reached 20,000 patient contacts and these stories highlight just how important the programme is. NROL is delivering extra therapy to a range of patients of different ages and backgrounds, and I am very proud of the team effort that has made this happen.”

Sian Davies, head of speech and language therapy, stroke & neurorehabilitation services at ELHT, added: “NROL started out as a response to Covid but through delivering rehabilitation this way we have learnt so much about new models of service delivery which colleagues and patients are telling us are bringing real tangible benefits.

“It is enabling us to create a very exciting community of practice amongst stroke and neurorehabilitation therapists, embracing ways of working collaboratively across organisational boundaries. The enthusiasm and commitment of all the colleagues involved is outstanding and we are now in discussions with our commissioning colleagues to look both to sustain and grow this across our Integrated Care Board and potentially further.”