As a part of your Home IV treatment, you will be offered comprehensive physiotherapy support. This service will be provided online or by telephone and is available for the duration of your IV treatment.
Please find further resources and FAQs below.
Frequently Asked Questions
During a flare up (exacerbation) of your lung condition, it is likely that your chest symptoms may feel worse. Common symptoms include bringing up excess sputum (phlegm, mucus) coughing more, feeling breathless and struggling to get up and move around. The degree of symptoms varies with each individual.
Chest physiotherapy involves a range of exercises and techniques that can help clear excess sputum from the airways and improve lung function and breathing. The physiotherapy team can support you by giving you useful guidance about managing your symptoms through breathing exercises and airway clearance techniques to help your chest recover as quickly as possible.
During your visit to the Day Case Unit to start Home IV treatment, you will also be assessed by the physiotherapy team. This assessment will include a discussion about your symptoms, a review of airway clearance techniques, and a review of your physical activity level. This will help us assess how best we can support you.
Additionally, the physiotherapy team aim to provide you with support about recovering your physical activity levels via an assessment from our exercise practitioner.
Following your assessment, the physiotherapist will create a tailored physiotherapy treatment plan for you, which can be followed from the comfort of your home, and with online or telephone support from the team if needed.
The amount of one-to-one support you receive will vary depending on your needs and will be confirmed to you by the physiotherapy team.
Our physiotherapists and exercise practitioners are keen to help support and guide you during your Home IV treatment in any way they can. We are aware of how these treatments can improve your recovery and want to work with you on the best way to achieve this, alongside recovering from your infection.
At the end of your Home IV treatment, the team will discuss with you about whether any follow up treatments or referrals are required.
During your physiotherapy sessions, you will be given exercises to help you with clearing your chest. These will be a range of breathing exercises which may or may not include breathing devices.
You will be given guidance on your physical activity levels and useful tips on how to keep yourself well during and after your treatment.
You will be offered the chance to talk through these options with the physiotherapy team once you are at home, via telephone or video call (if we need to see the exercises being performed) throughout your treatment.
Finally, we will also discuss how to fit these exercises into your daily routine alongside your other treatments, and work with you on the best ways to complete these exercises.
Contact the physiotherapy team
We are offering drop-in video consultations for patients in our Home IV physiotherapy clinic through our video platform, Attend Anywhere.
Patients can drop-in for a video consultation between 9am and 11am, Monday to Friday via the following link: https://nhs.vc/RBH-HomeIV
When you click on the link you will be asked to enter the Home IV physiotherapy waiting area where someone from the team will join you when they are ready. If you are unable to access the Attend Anywhere system, please call the physiotherapy team on extension 88088 via the switchboard.
Find out more about the Attend Anywhere video platform.