The Essex Cardiothoracic Centre

Friday, May 24th

Cardiac Rehabilitation

Cardiac Rehabilitation

What Is It?

An integral part of your recovery involving continuing support and guidance for both you and your family. The rehabilitation process starts whilst you are in hospital and continues to support you when you are discharged and for many weeks after.

Who Can Come?

Anyone who has had a heart attack, certain types of heart surgery or insertion of a stent.

There are three phases of the rehabilitation process which The Essex Cardiothoracic Centre facilitates.

Phase I - Whilst you are in Hospital

A member of the Cardiac Rehabilitation team will visit you on the ward prior to transfer to your local hospital or discharge home.
We will discuss with both you and your family your event, recovery, lifestyle modification and answer any questions, queries or worries that you might have.
We will give you relevant literature to take home and read at your leisure and details of our local cardiac support group will be provided.
You will also be given both our phone number and your local Cardiac Rehabilitation contact details. You will be encouraged to use these numbers for any queries or worries that you may have.

Phase 2 – When you are at home

If you live in the area normally served by Basildon Hospital you will receive a phone call from our team to enquire how you are progressing. We will also try and answer any of your questions and if necessary ask you to attend a nurse led clinic appointment.
If your local hospital is not Basildon we will forward your details to your local Cardiac rehabilitation service as soon as you are discharged.
You will be contacted by your local Cardiac Rehabilitation service for further support and follow up.

Phase 3 – an Exercise and Education Programme

If you live locally you will be invited to attend a structured exercise and education programme either at the purpose built air conditioned Gym within the Essex Cardiothoracic Centre or if preferred a home based programme called the Heart Manual. These programmes can last form 4 – 8 weeks and attendance can be once or twice a week depending on your individual needs.
Patients out of our area will be offered very similar programmes depending on what their local service provides.

Who will I meet at Rehab?

As well as our specialist nurses, we have two senior Physiotherapist and many other professionals including Dieticians, Pharmacist and a counsellor. You will also have the opportunity to meet others who have had similar experiences.

We also have a great Cardiac Support Group called Hearts and Minds that is run by previous patients. They have an extremely informative website that includes patient's stories of their experiences, a question and answer section and much more. To access the site go to www.basildonheart.org.uk