MeFit - The Medway Prehabilitation Service

MeFit – Getting you Fighting Fit for Treatment

The prehabilitation Service at Medway NHS Foundation Trust

MeFit - Medway's Prehabilitation Service – will support you to improve your health before your operation or prior to chemo or radiotherapy, to help you prepare for the challenges of your therapy and help you to recover quicker and better.

The MeFit team will also support you in the difficult post- operative days and weeks.

What is prehabilitation?

Prehabilitation is similar to rehabilitation – but it takes place before your procedure. Just as rehabilitation often involves different exercises, nutritional guidance, and anxiety coping strategies to improve your overall fitness.  It enables you to cope with stress of your procedure, and to lay the ground for your recovery afterwards.

What support does MeFit provide?

Led by consultant anaesthetists, the Prehabilitation team consists of two exercise physiologists, a dietician, diabetic nurse, pharmacist and a psychiatrist.

This means that our MeFit service can provide a full range of support to improve physical fitness and mental well-being of the patients. This is done through a mix of tailored exercises, healthy eating advice, de-stressing techniques and support with stopping smoking and reducing alcohol intake.

We use cardiopulmonary exercise test to measure your fitness objectively and predict risks with your therapy.

We also liaise with your GP and other specialist services to optimise your chronic conditions.

An example of the sort of exercises we will take our patients through is shown in this film below

What difference can it make?

Prehabilitation can reduce the risk of postoperative complications and may help patients get better sooner after surgery.

Who can benefit from prehabilitation?

Prehabilitation can benefit patients who are going through a number of different treatments. It can be particularly helpful to patients with cancer, and increased fitness helps them to cope with stress of treatments like surgery, chemotherapy, or radiotherapy.

Conditions that we can support through prehabilitation include:

• Major surgery for cancer
• Major vascular surgery
• Chemotherapy
• Radiotherapy
• Joint replacement surgery

How can I use the MeFit service?

If you have one of the conditions listed above, talk to your GP or your Consultant about being referred to us.

Alternatively, you can contact the team on medwayft.cpetreferrals@nhs.net for advice on whether you can use our service, and how you can access it.

Where can I find out more?

Some basic information about what you can do to prepare for an operation is available here. If you are referred to MeFit, we will work with you to produce a tailored programme to your specific health needs.

GPs can find out more about how Prehabilitiation works in a clinical context here

The Perioperative Exercise Testing and Training Society also provides clinical evidence for the clinical benefits of Exercise Training, Exercise Testing as well as clinical guidelines. 

The MeFit team

Led by consultant anaesthetists, the MeFit team consists of exercise physiologists, a dietician, diabetic nurse, pharmacist and a psychiatrist to support mental well-being:

Dr Manisha Shah – Consultant Anaesthetist

Dr Sam Black – Consultant Anaesthetist

Dr Chee Chu – Consultant Anaesthetist

Dr Pavol Palcovic – Consultant Intensivist

Dr Keith Lancaster – Consultant Anaesthetist

Mr Joe Clements – Senior Exercise Physiologist

Mr Sam Lovage – Exercise Physiologist

Contact us:

Email: medwayft.cpetreferrals@nhs.net

Twitter: @medwayperiop1