Getting Advice
Being diagnosed with a brain injury is extremely upsetting and often confusing for people affected and their families and wider support networks. We are here to try to help make this a less distressing experience wherever we can.
We can liaise with medical teams and other practitioners and can provide Headway advice and support to people who are either close to or who have been recently discharged from hospital. This may have been long stay as an inpatient following a stroke, brain tumour or severe traumatic brain injury, or it may have been a relatively quick visit to A&E following a concussion or mild traumatic brain injury.
We provide information about the support and services Headway Sussex can offer and other help which may be more widely available. This also includes information about living with brain injury and coping with the symptoms and changes which may impact on people’s lives.
Discharge from Hospital
Our Team will try to keep in contact and check on your wellbeing over the phone once you have been discharged from hospital. This may include advice on how to arrange funded support for individual outreach depending on your needs and choices.
Knowing how to cope after leaving hospital can be very difficult so we may help with referring you to other services and to make sure you know what your options are moving forwards. This can include advice on planning for your future wellbeing and social connections.
Getting Support
The service is open to anyone with a brain injury over the age of 18 and their family carers.
Patients and family carers can contact Sam Shephard, Hospital Liaison and Groups Lead on 07776 528796.
To be referred to this service we need to ask for confirmation of a diagnosis of brain injury. This can be as simple as email confirmation. Brain injury survivors and their families can also be directed to the service by the medical team looking after a patient.
Headway Sussex will gather the required personal information at an initial meeting together with any necessary consent.
To make a formal referral please email referrals@headwaysussex.org.uk