Emily Richards

Acute Medicine Highly Specialist Physiotherapist for Imperial College Healthcare NHS Trust.

Emily is a Highly Specialist Physiotherapist currently working within the Acute & Emergency Medicine Therapy Team at St Mary’s Hospital. She takes a leadership role working collaboratively within a multidisciplinary team completing comprehensive therapy assessments of patients in the acute medicine setting to facilitate early supported discharge and prevent admission to the general wards. Her previous experience spans acute, community and emergency care having undertaken leadership roles both in the Rapid Response and Older Person’s Ward setting. She has keen interest in quality improvement and has led several quality improvement projects including an “End PJ Paralysis” project on an older person’s medicine ward. A poster from this project was presented at the Chartered Society of Physiotherapy, Physiotherapy UK Conference in 2019.

Her Fellowship with NIHR ARC Northwest London aims to improve the therapies falls assessment and management plan across the Trust initially, with the longer-term aim of expanding this across the multidisciplinary team to reduce duplication of assessment, increased patient involvement and self-management. The project aligns to the NIHR ARC strategic aims of improving multi-morbidity and reducing unnecessary demands upon the local health and social systems.