Spire St Anthony's Hospital physiotherapist recognised for delivering outstanding patient care

To celebrate Allied Health Professions Day a physiotherapist from Spire St Anthony’s Hospital, has been recognised with a prestigious IRIS award.

An IRIS (Inclusive Recognition of Inspirational Staff) award celebrates the pivotal role clinical colleagues have in providing care to patients. Any Spire patient or colleague can nominate someone for an award.

Melanie Thorn, Physiotherapist and Clinical Rehabilitation Specialist, was nominated for arranging and delivering hydrotherapy sessions for a teenager with complex needs. This is not a service that is routinely run at Spire St Anthony’s Hospital, therefore Melanie spent a lot of time understanding the patients’ needs and discussing with the child’s family how the hospital could safely run hydrotherapy sessions for them. This was of particular importance as all other local hydrotherapy services had declined the patient due to his common care needs.

Melanie worked extremely hard to ensure the patient received the treatment he needed and carried out extensive research in preparation. The patient is doing exceedingly well, benefiting enormously from the sessions. His family have expressed their appreciation of the time that Melanie, in conjunction with the Children and Young People’s Team at St Anthony’s Hospital spent to go above and beyond for their son.

Spire St Anthony's Hospital's Melanie Thorn receiving her IRIS award

Fifty-one Spire colleagues from across the 38 hospitals were nominated for an IRIS award, with a cross-departmental panel formed to select 7 winners.

Melanie Thorn, Physiotherapist and Clinical Rehabilitation Specialist from Spire St Anthony’s Hospital, one of the IRIS award winners, said: “I was very surprised and proud to hear that I had won the IRIS award. Watching the patient progress throughout his hydrotherapy treatment has been very rewarding, and I truly believe we are making a positive difference to his life. Numerous staff at Spire St Anthony’s Hospital have supported me and the patient throughout this process, and to be recognised by them in this way is amazing. Thank you so much.”

Jonathan Head, Hospital Director for Spire St Anthony’s Hospital, commented: “I’m thrilled that Melanie has been named as a Spire IRIS award winner. She exemplifies the outstanding, compassionate care we strive to provide for our patients, Melanie works tirelessly, every day to make our patients’ experience of being in our hospital as comfortable as possible. She is an absolute credit to Spire Healthcare.”