Emilie’s story
Emilie Verroken is a clinical lead speech and language therapist based in intermediate care at Kendray Hospital. Emilie, who is from Sheffield, was nominated by a member of staff for her new and innovative approaches to patient care:
One area which I believe goes unrecognised when treating people through our speech and language therapy services is the social isolation which accompanies people with aphasia. To address this I have set up an Aphasia Café at the Metrodome which is run fortnightly with help from a fantastic team of volunteers and a therapy assistant.
The aim of this café is to support both people with aphasia and their carers in building new social networks and have an opportunity to practice their conversational skills in a safe but real life environment. Even when people with aphasia have been discharged from the mainstream speech and language therapy service, the café offers ongoing long term support for our service users.
My job is important to me because I learn from patients every day and I feel very privileged to have the opportunity to support the people in Barnsley with acquired communication difficulties and be able to help and hopefully make a difference to them at a very critical point in their life.
This nomination is important to me as it will hopefully give another opportunity to raise awareness of the issues around aphasia and all of the hard work we do as a Trust.
To me being an NHS70 Superstar means someone who is continuously striving towards improving patient’s care above and beyond expectations.
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