Short Term Care Centre

Located at The William & Patricia Venton Centre, Short Term Care Centre serves Plymouth and the surrounding area as a registered rehabilitation service, within the South West region. The registered provider is Livewell Southwest CIC, the legal entity accountable to the regulator for the quality and safety of care delivered here.

Rehabilitation services help people recover function after illness or injury — stroke, brain injury, orthopaedic surgery, cardiac events, or long-term neurological conditions. Programmes are goal-based and multidisciplinary: physiotherapists, occupational therapists, speech and language therapists, rehabilitation nurses and psychologists working to a plan measured in regained abilities rather than bed-days. Short Term Care Centre is CQC-registered for this work.

Evidence in rehabilitation is unambiguous on two points: earlier is better, and intensity matters. The difference between a good and a mediocre service is rarely the gym equipment — it is the number of therapy hours actually delivered each week, the specificity of goals, and how well the team plans the transition home, where gains are kept or lost.

Administratively, the service falls under Plymouth, within the South West region, in a city with 267 registered healthcare providers of all types. That local footprint matters for social-care funding and community-service referrals, both of which are organised at local-authority level.

The CQC publishes inspection reports for registered locations as they are completed; the official record for this location is linked in the registration section below and is the most reliable public account of how the service performs.

Rehabilitation providers register for the populations they serve, which shapes their therapy mix and nursing model. The register lists Short Term Care Centre as caring for:

Caring for adults under 65 yrs

Registration for working-age adults signals a service oriented around different goals than elderly care: maintaining employment and family roles, rehabilitation and independence, and care plans built around an active life rather than primarily around frailty management.

Caring for adults over 65 yrs

The service is registered to care for older adults, which carries practical expectations: staff trained in frailty, falls prevention and pressure-area care; environments that accommodate reduced mobility; and care planning that accounts for multiple long-term conditions and polypharmacy — the norm rather than the exception over 65.

A practical rule when shortlisting: prefer depth over breadth. A provider registered precisely for your care group — and able to describe its training and staffing for it — usually outperforms one with a longer but shallower list of declarations. And if your needs cross two of these groups at once, make the service explain how it handles the combination; that answer predicts your experience better than any single rating.

Treat these declarations as the service's public promise — inspectors check against them, and you are entitled to ask exactly how each one shows up in staffing and daily practice.

Not every rehabilitation service offers every service below at every site, so verify the specific treatment you need with Short Term Care Centre when you book.

Physiotherapy

Movement, strength and balance retraining — the backbone of most rehabilitation programmes, dosed by intensity and progression.

Occupational therapy

Rebuilding daily living skills — washing, dressing, kitchen tasks — and adapting home environments for safe independence.

Speech and language therapy

Communication and swallowing rehabilitation after stroke and brain injury, including modified-diet management.

Neurological rehabilitation

Specialist programmes for stroke, brain injury, MS and Parkinson's built around neuroplasticity principles: repetition, task-specificity, intensity.

Orthopaedic rehabilitation

Post-surgical protocols after joint replacement, fractures and spinal surgery that turn good operations into good outcomes.

Psychology and neuropsychology

Assessment and treatment of the cognitive and emotional consequences of illness and injury — often the gating factor for progress.

Discharge planning and home transition

Home visits, equipment provision and family training before discharge, plus community follow-up to sustain gains.

To contact Short Term Care Centre directly, call 01752435022 or use the enquiry route on its website (linked in the contact section above).

Rehabilitation at Short Term Care Centre is accessed through three routes: NHS referral from a hospital team or GP (ask the ward's therapy team or discharge coordinator to make the case for specialist rehab rather than generic care), privately funded self-referral after clinical screening, or through case managers and insurers in personal-injury and medico-legal contexts, where rehabilitation is funded as part of a claim.

Timing is clinical: for stroke and brain injury, specialist rehabilitation should follow the acute phase without a gap, so families should push for referral decisions before discharge rather than after. Ask the service directly about admission criteria, current waiting times and — crucially — how many therapy hours per week your programme would actually contain.

For privately funded programmes, request a written proposal after assessment: goals, disciplines involved, weekly therapy hours, expected duration, and how progress is measured and reported. Serious providers produce this as a matter of course.

Published opening hours for Short Term Care Centre are not yet held on this profile — the register does not record them, and hours appear here once the provider claims and completes its listing. A quick phone call (01752435022) remains the definitive check, and it is worth making even where hours are published, since bank holidays and staffing can change a given day.

As a rule of thumb for services of this type, phone lines are least pressured mid-morning and mid-afternoon on midweek days; Monday mornings carry the weekend's accumulated demand and are the slowest time to get through almost everywhere in healthcare.

A first appointment at a rehabilitation service is part assessment, part administration — and you control how productive the assessment half is.

Bring the paperwork that saves repeating yourself: a list of current medications with doses (a photo of the boxes works), any relevant hospital letters or test results, your NHS number if you know it, and glasses or hearing aids if you use them. If the appointment concerns someone you care for, bring evidence of any legal authority you hold — power of attorney documents change what staff can lawfully discuss with you.

Expect the first appointment to include identity and history checks, a discussion of what you need, and an examination or assessment appropriate to the service. Be direct about two things in particular: everything you are taking (including over-the-counter and herbal products), and what outcome you actually want — clinicians plan differently for "I want to be seen quickly" versus "I want the most thorough option".

Before you leave, make sure three questions have answers: what happens next, who does it, and when. Vague follow-up arrangements are where care most often goes adrift; a specific next step — a booked review, a named referral, a results date with a way to chase it — is the mark of a well-run service, and it is entirely reasonable to ask for it explicitly.

NHS rehabilitation is free but capacity-limited, and intensity varies by area. Private inpatient neuro-rehabilitation is charged weekly and represents a significant investment — insurers, personal-injury funds and NHS personal health budgets all pay for it in different circumstances, so establish the funding route before comparing providers.

For outpatient therapy, private sessions are charged per discipline per session; block bookings and home-visit programmes are usually negotiable. If your need follows an accident that was someone else's fault, speak to your solicitor before self-funding — rehabilitation costs are recoverable and the Rehabilitation Code encourages early insurer funding.

You will find Short Term Care Centre at The William & Patricia Venton Centre,Astor Drive,Plymouth. The PL4 9RD postcode places it in the PL4 district of Plymouth, and entering the full postcode into a sat-nav or maps app will route you precisely — or use the Google Maps link for this exact location.

If you are travelling by public transport, plan the last leg around the postcode rather than the service name — journey planners resolve postcodes far more reliably. Arriving by car, check parking arrangements when you book: town-centre services often rely on nearby public car parks, while suburban and residential locations usually offer on-site or on-street options.

Think about journey frequency before fixating on any single provider: a one-off assessment justifies travel, but ongoing care multiplies every mile. With 267 providers of all types across Plymouth, most neighbourhoods — including PL4 — have credible options within a short journey.

Accessibility needs are best flagged in advance: step-free access, hearing loops, interpreters and longer appointments are all reasonable adjustments providers are expected to accommodate under the Equality Act, and a note on your booking makes the visit run as it should.

If this location is not convenient, the nearest comparable alternative is Livewell Southwest CIC, roughly 0.3 miles away — the nearby providers section below lists more options with distances.

The right questions do more than fill an appointment — they reveal how a rehabilitation service thinks. These are the ones that earn their place:

1. Who exactly will provide my care, and what is their professional registration?
2. What are the realistic timescales — first appointment, results, and treatment?
3. What will this cost in total, and what could add to that figure later?
4. What are the alternatives, including doing nothing for now?
5. How do you handle problems out of hours, and who do I contact?
6. What should I expect to feel or notice afterwards, and what would be a warning sign?
7. How will you keep my GP informed, and what gets written to my record?
8. If my needs change, how quickly can the plan change with them?

Write the answers down during the conversation — comparing them across two or three providers turns an anxious choice into an informed one.

Every provider on this site is registered with the Care Quality Commission — but registration is the floor, not the ceiling, and the public record lets you judge far more than the badge.

The CQC inspects against five questions — is the service safe, effective, caring, responsive and well-led — and publishes its findings. For Short Term Care Centre, the registered provider is Livewell Southwest CIC. The official CQC record for this location carries the current registration status, ratings where awarded, and every published inspection report.

The rating scale runs Outstanding, Good, Requires Improvement, Inadequate — and context matters when reading it. Good is the expected standard, not a consolation prize; Outstanding is genuinely rare and usually reflects exceptional leadership culture rather than better equipment. A Requires Improvement rating deserves a closer look at which of the five questions dragged it down: a responsive shortfall (waiting times, complaint handling) is a different risk from a safe shortfall (medicines, staffing). Some location types are inspected without ratings at all, so an unrated service is not a warning sign in itself.

Reading a report efficiently: start with the well-led section (it predicts everything else), then safe. Look at the direction of travel across the last two inspections rather than a single snapshot, and treat "requires improvement" with a credible action plan differently from the same rating with repeated findings. If anything in a report concerns you, raising it with the service directly is both fair and revealing — well-run providers answer plainly.

Every patient of a CQC-registered service holds a set of enforceable rights, and knowing them changes how confidently you can act when something is not right.

You are entitled to informed consent — a genuine explanation of options, risks and alternatives before treatment, in language you understand, with interpreters provided where needed. You have a right of access to your own records under UK GDPR, free of charge in most cases, within a month of asking. And under the Equality Act, providers must make reasonable adjustments for disability — from step-free access to communication formats — as a legal duty, not a favour.

If care falls short, complain in stages: first to the provider itself (every registered service must operate an accessible complaints procedure and respond within a defined timescale); then, for NHS-funded care, to the Parliamentary and Health Service Ombudsman — or for privately funded care, to the Independent Sector Complaints Adjudication Service where the provider subscribes. Local authority-funded social care complaints escalate to the Local Government and Social Care Ombudsman.

Two further channels matter. The CQC does not investigate individual complaints, but it wants to hear about poor care — reports feed directly into inspection planning, and you can tell it anything in confidence via its website. And if you need help making a complaint about NHS care, every area has a statutory independent advocacy service that is free to use; your council can point you to the current provider.

Plymouth has 267 CQC-registered healthcare providers in total, of which 4 are rehabilitation services — so genuine comparison is possible before you commit. The full Plymouth directory and the local rehabilitation listing let you shortlist alongside this profile.

Comparing the 4 rehabilitation providers around Plymouth, ask the intensity question first: how many hours of each therapy per week, delivered by whom? Then ask for outcome data — good services measure with standard tools and will share anonymised results. Specialism fit matters: a stroke unit for stroke, a brain-injury service for brain injury. The CQC report's effective domain tells you whether the multidisciplinary machinery genuinely works.

Where is Short Term Care Centre located?

Short Term Care Centre is at The William & Patricia Venton Centre,Astor Drive,Plymouth, PL4 9RD, in Plymouth (South West region). The full postcode works in any sat-nav or journey planner.

How do I contact Short Term Care Centre?

Call 01752435022 during opening hours. The practice also runs a website with an enquiry route. For funding-route questions (NHS availability, fees), asking directly by phone gets the current position.

Is Short Term Care Centre regulated?

Yes — it is registered with the Care Quality Commission (location ID 1-12592321495) under the registered provider Livewell Southwest CIC. Registration is a legal requirement for delivering this type of care in England and brings ongoing inspection.

What are the nearest alternatives to Short Term Care Centre?

The closest comparable providers are Livewell Southwest CIC (0.3 miles), Syrena House (1.4 miles), Elm Case Management Limited (2.8 miles). Each has a full profile on this site with contact details and registration information.

How soon after a stroke should rehabilitation start?

Almost immediately — guidelines call for early mobilisation within days and structured rehabilitation to continue seamlessly after the acute phase. If a gap between hospital and rehab is proposed, challenge it: early intensity drives long-term outcome.

How many therapy hours should a programme include?

Specialist inpatient programmes commonly target a substantial daily dose across disciplines (guidelines reference multiple therapy hours per day for those who can tolerate it). Ask any provider for their actual delivered hours, not the timetabled aspiration.

Can rehabilitation help years after the injury?

Yes — meaningful gains are documented long after injury, particularly for specific goals (walking distance, arm function, communication). Progress is slower than in early recovery, so goal-specific, time-limited programmes with measurement are the honest approach.

Does Short Term Care Centre treat NHS or private patients?

The public register does not record funding routes, and many providers serve both. Phone the service for the current position — NHS availability in particular changes as capacity fills and reopens, so today's answer beats anything a directory can cache.

Where does the information on this page come from?

Core details — name, address, registration, provider and specialisms — come from the Care Quality Commission register (Open Government Licence v3.0) and are refreshed monthly. Guidance sections reflect how services of this type work across the UK. Always confirm time-sensitive details such as opening hours directly with the provider.