'My disability is getting worse': NHS hydrotherapy cuts leaving patients to deteriorate

In some cases the facilities have been turned into storage rooms or require maintenance as a result of long-term lack of use.

Staff shortages due to Covid and a focus on “essential and urgent hospital activity” only have also been blamed for the prolonged closures.

The pools are smaller, heated and specially designed to enable patients to train with physiotherapists

A handful - in Fife, Highland, and the Western General in Lothian - are back, but running at reduced capacity.

In NHS Ayrshire, Arrol Park remained open throughout the pandemic but the hydrotherapy pool at Crosshouse hospital is still closed. 

A spokeswoman said its physiotherapy team "are considering all options to safeguard the future of hydrotherapy as part of their service remobilisation plan".

Hydrotherapy - also known as aquatic physiotherapy - has been shown to be a cost-effective treatment for patients with highly disabling conditions who benefit in particular from water-based exercises to strengthen muscles and joints.

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Before Covid struck, Paul Downey credited hydrotherapy sessions at the Royal Alexandra Hospital (RAH) in Paisley for getting him back on the golf course for the first time in 20 years.

Mr Downey, 69, suffers from Ankylosing Spondylitis, a rare form of arthritis which causes pain and stiffness in the lower spine before spreading up to the neck and damaging joints in other parts of the body.

Although incurable, medication and exercise can ease the pain and improve mobility.

Mr Downey, a retired call centre worker, said: “When you have an arthritic condition they always say to you to do exercise, but movement causes pain.

“What I noticed in the water was that I didn’t have that same pain at all, so you find that you’re working much harder - going faster - and I found I was gaining more strength.

“When you come out of the pool it’s like a weight has lifted off your shoulders. There’s a form of elation, a feelgood factor.”

Paul Downey credits hydrotherapy for getting him back on the golf course for the first time in 20 years

As his condition improved, Mr Downey - who had struggled to walk more than 100 yards beforehand - was able to join friends again on golf trips, and was amazed when he managed to play a full 18-hole course.

“I still remember the first day I hit a ball on that first tee, because it was like ‘I never thought I could actually do this again’,” said Mr Downey.

“We went down to Whitby a couple of times to play, and that’s a very hilly course, but I managed it.

“Then coronavirus came along and the hydrotherapy sessions all stopped. Now I’m back to where I was before.”

The RAH hydrotherapy pool was originally due to open in January, then mid-February, but has been delayed twice.

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A spokesman for NHS Greater Glasgow and Clyde, which runs the RAH pool and two others in the region - all of which are still closed - said it is in the process of remobilising its outpatient therapy services "and hydrotherapy is very much part of these plans". 

He added: "This is a phased approach of remobilisation as we have to ensure we are following our local guidelines to ensure safety of our service users and staff.

"This includes how to ensure service users and staff socially distance within a small hydrotherapy pool and how we follow personal protective (PPE) guidelines.

"We are in the process of servicing our pools in anticipation of them opening and look forward to welcoming our service users back in the near future."

Kenryck Lloyd Jones, public affairs and policy manager for CSP Scotland, acknowledged that running the pools “is expensive”, but stressed that losing them to post-pandemic budget cuts would be a false economy.

He said: “So many debilitating conditions have worsened over the pandemic and when people are de-conditioned their health becomes more complex, they require a higher level of intervention for a longer period.

“The solution to the challenges the NHS is facing is to treat people in their communities before the need for hospital admission or social care, residential care.

"We need to be supporting people to stay healthy.

“Hydrotherapy is a really important part of that equation, and it’s not as expensive as other services which are never questioned.

“It’s not just the impact on people’s lives individually either.

"What are the increased costs to the rest of the system when people become inactive and lose that route to health?”

Eileen McLean

Eileen McLean, from Paisley, had been going to the RAH for hydrotherapy once or twice a week for two years before the pandemic.

The 60-year-old, who was born with spina bifida - a birth defect which affects her lower limbs - was referred after breaking her kneecap in a fall.

Hydrotherapy had “made a big difference”, she said.

“My muscles were actually getting stronger. I was able to walk about much more and I didn’t have as much pain in my legs, whereas over the last year I haven’t really been walking at all.

“It’s really frustrating because my disability is getting worse.

"I was building up my strength, but now I’ll need to start again from scratch and I’d have to go more than once a week.

“It is so much easier and less painful for me to do the exercises in the pool as opposed to on land where standing against a wall without holding on is a problem for me.”

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Retired painter and decorator Peter McTavish, who also has Ankylosing Spondylitis, had travelled from his home in Kirkcaldy, Fife, for hydrotherapy at Perth Royal Infirmary every week for 25 years before it closed in 2020.

A spokeswoman for NHS Tayside said work is now underway to reopen it “as soon as all infection and prevention and health and safety requirements have been completed”.

Mr McTavish, 69, who keeps in regular contact with the other patients in his group, says the loss of the service since Covid has “undoubtedly worsened our symptoms and caused some real mental distress”.

Peter McTavish had gone to hydrotherapy in Perth every week for 25 years before Covid struck

He said: “It was a social thing as well, you interacted with other people who suffered the same condition so you could ‘exchange notes’ if you like.

“With AS - you get medication for it - but the key thing is to keep mobile otherwise your joints can seize up.

"I feel a bit stiffer, I get a bit more bother with one of my hips.

“It is obviously understandable that the pool had to initially close during the pandemic but I feel there should be no reason now that our classes cannot resume - especially given the small numbers that make up our group.

“With lateral flow tests now readily available I’m sure we would all have happily done them before entering the premises.”

Sarah Wratten, chair of the Aquatic Therapy Association, said: "The pandemic has created a large need for rehabilitation with long waiting lists for orthopaedic procedures, and people with long-term conditions including long Covid struggling with problems, which are often complex and multi-faceted.

“It is imperative that aquatic physiotherapy services remobilise now to allow clinicians to provide the right rehabilitation at the right time to those most in need.”