UK Acquired Brain Injury Time for Change Summit 2024

By Alyson Norman

Last week on the 4th November, the UK acquired Brain Injury Forum (UKABIF) hosted their annual Time for Change summit in Manchester. This long established event aims to raise awareness of the need to address issues around brain injury at a local and national level. This year many of the team from Anchor Point were present to listen to the talks and to present their own work.

In an important move, this year, all presentations were done either by people with lived experience of brain injury or by a professional with a person with lived experience present. This really helped to ground the role of lived experience in clinical work and research.

The day started with an opening address by the Chair of UKABIF, Professor Andrew Bateman. He was swiftly followed by Natasa Pantelic, Chief of Staff and labour Activist who talked about the new government’s pledge to continue the work on the ABI strategy and provided hints and tips to the audience about how to engage with their own MPs.

Kate Tantam, presented next with a fantastic overview of her work on highlighting the importance of neurorehabilitation through patient stories. She was followed by Professor Rui Loureiro and Debbie Butler presenting on the new National Rehabilitation Centre and the importance of rehabilitation for patients after a range of conditions, including brain injury.

After the break Dr Mike Dilley and Kevin talked about functional symptoms after head injury and the difficulties that Kevin had experienced after his work-related accident. They were followed by Dr Virginia Newcombe and Joanne LLoyd talking about the problems of ‘mild’ traumatic brain injury and the need for better biomarker science to be able to understand long-term risks and recovery.

In the afternoon, the fabulous Ellis and Luke Parry presented on the stages of Luke’s brain injury and his recovery and the work Ellis has pioneered on developing a new app for supporting care post-discharge, called NeuMind. I was lucky enough to follow this amazing presentation where myself, Kate Mellor and Dr Caroline Bald presented on the work we have been doing on building a social work training platofrm around brain injury through our Heads Together project.

The day ended with a panel discussion about the importance of the need to improve outcomes for people with brain injuries, and their families.