NSL Blog

Healthcare innovation Integrated Neurological Services

June 9, 2014

Integrated Neurological Services (INS) was founded in 1999 by Liz Grove and Ellie Kinnear. Its purpose to help patients with Parkinson’s disease, multiple sclerosis, stroke and other neurological complaints that affect movement, memory, balance and communication, everything essential to a normal life. The charity works to make a real difference between a life ruined by severe illness and a life that makes the most of the opportunities still available.

INS – say, we start where the NHS leaves off.

Jackie Ashley who recently interviewed the staff at INS writes,

It’s all about mutual support. When you are hit with a long-term medical condition your life – and your family’s life – changes totally. But the charity aims to help you adapt, to share experiences with people suffering from the same conditions and to learn skills that may enable you to live a fulfilling life, maybe following a different pathway.

The two key words from all staff are “patient-centered”. These people are ill, often very ill. But everyone is individually assessed, and given a “care navigator” to help them through the system. That can be anything from finding clinical help, medication, physical therapy, emotional support, housing support and help for the carers too.

The patients I met felt valued, supported and empowered. One stroke survivor had found that Nordic walking (with ski poles) helped his movement and fitness, so the team persuaded him to lead a group in Nordic walking once a week.

The staff do not use management speak, nor do they operate from profit centers as a form of measurement and motivation. The organisation is a charity embedded into the community, it works from a different world view and purpose, something very different to managing by numbers and by profit (nonlinear). Managing people by numbers always has seemed an oxymoron to me. INS shows

Below a short video about INS and how it works

Journey further

 

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