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Physiotherapy going strong at the Royal Free
• OUR physiotherapy services were the focus of attention in your paper recently (Physio services are taken over by private firm, August 13).
We share your disappointment that we did not win a tender for providing a specific specialist musculoskeletal service for Camden patients. But we take issue at the comments of John Gulliver on the work of our physiotherapists.
We do not know the identity of his “friend” who received private care, but, if he lived in Camden, far from being refused treatment he would have been offered an appointment within five working days as an urgent case.
To set the record straight:
l the Royal Free has a busy physiotherapy department with 71 staff covering in-patient orthopaedics, musculo-skeletal, respiratory, neurosciences, women’s health, paediatrics, amputees and services for older patients;
l we have over 7,500 patient contacts every month;
l average waiting times for urgent cases is five days and for routine cases is around six weeks – compared to eight weeks at neighbouring hospitals.
Your readers can be assured that there is no plan to sell off our physiotherapy services.
In Letters to the editor (August 20) your correspondent talks about us having sold off our cleaning services.
While this might be the case with other London hospitals, the Royal Free retains its in-house NHS-employed cleaning staff.
KIM FLEMING
Director of planning Royal Free Hampstead NHS Trust
The Editor writes: John Gulliver’s friend assures us he does live in Camden and was definitely not offered an appointment with a physiotherapist.
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