Keswick’s Calvert Reconnections is supporting a new Bill aimed at improving quality of life for people with Acquired Brain Injury.
Over 200 MPs, charities, survivors and other providers have signed a letter to the Prime Minister urging him to support MP Chris Bryant’s Private Members Bill, which commits the Government to prepare and publish a strategy to meet the needs of all children and adults with an Acquired Brain Injury, also known as an ABI.
The Bill is set to receive its second reading in the House of Commons on Friday, December 3.
Signatories to the letter include former Government ministers Andrew Mitchell, Tracey Crouch and Robert Buckland and charities – UK Acquired Brain Injury Forum (UKABIF), Headway, The Disabilities Trust, The Children’s Trust and the Child Brain Injury Trust.
The Bill is calling for a comprehensive strategy to be implemented in order to meet the needs of adults and children with an acquired brain injury.
This strategy, to be published no later than April 2023, aims to improve the provision of services by local authorities, NHS, Department for Education, Ministry of Defence, Prison Service, Department for Work and Pensions and the Department for Digital, Culture, Media and Sport.
Acquired Brain Injury is a leading cause of death and disability affecting over 1.3 million people and costing £15 billion to the UK economy each year.
Commenting on the Bill, Heather Batey, managing director of reach and trustee at the Lake District Calvert Trust, said: “We absolutely support the aims of the Private Members Bill on Acquired Brain Injury.
“We have required a clear national strategy to meet the ongoing debilitating effects of people living with brain injury for many years and this is a great opportunity.
“I’m particularly pleased that it includes mild TBI and concussion ensuring grass roots, not just professional, injuries are included in the rehabilitation pathway. I look forward with excitement to the outcome of the second reading on December 3.”
Calvert Reconnections is the UK’s first ABI rehabilitation centre combining traditional clinical therapies with physical activity in the outdoors.
