Physiotherapy for Elderly at Home in Petersfield

Petersfield is better served than most of the places we cover. Petersfield Hospital on Swan Street, run by Hampshire and Isle of Wight Healthcare NHS Foundation Trust, has an urgent treatment centre open 8am to 8pm every day of the year, a rapid assessment unit for older people, and community therapy services on site. Cedar Ward provides inpatient rehabilitation, frailty and end-of-life care.

Two things are worth knowing. Cedar Ward has 21 beds — for Petersfield and the whole of the surrounding East Hampshire countryside. And there is no A&E: anything serious means Queen Alexandra Hospital at Cosham, about fifteen miles down the A3(M), run by Portsmouth Hospitals University NHS Trust.

Once you're home, short-term support usually comes through Hampshire County Council's reablement service. It's free, the teams include occupational therapists as well as care staff, and it's capped at six weeks — sometimes less, depending on your situation.

The difficulty comes when that support ends but recovery hasn't finished. Progress after a stroke, a fracture or a long admission often continues for months, and six weeks rarely covers it. That's the point at which most people call us. We continue the work at home, for as long as it's genuinely helping, and we work alongside any NHS or council support already in place rather than in place of it.

Most families who call us here are in one of two situations. Either somebody has come home from hospital and the council's six weeks have run out before they were ready — or a fall has taken their confidence, and the idea of getting to an appointment and back is doing more harm than the appointment would do good.

Petersfield has more older residents than most places. Nearly a quarter of the town is over 65, well above the England average of 18.4 per cent, and that rises across the villages around it. It also has genuinely good local services — a community hospital with an urgent treatment centre, a rapid assessment unit for older people, and community therapy on site. This is not a place we would describe as neglected.

What it doesn't have is capacity to match. Cedar Ward has twenty-one rehabilitation beds for the town and the whole of the countryside around it, and the moment someone is well enough, they go home. There's no A&E either, so anything urgent after 8pm means fifteen miles down the A3(M) to Queen Alexandra at Cosham. For a family living in Steep or Langrish or East Meon, that's a long way to be at nine o'clock at night with a parent who has had a fall.

We fill the gap that opens after all of that — when the ward has discharged you, the reablement team has finished, and there is still real recovery left to do. We come to the house, for as long as it's genuinely helping, and we work around whatever NHS or council support you already have rather than duplicating it.