Leeds Beckett University - City Campus,
Woodhouse Lane,
LS1 3HE
The Lothian SLT service model is designed to offer patient led and prophylactic valve changes and the elective appointment design and rationale will be contrasted with the emergency visits for urgent troubleshooting in terms of service planning and valve change frequency. Voice prosthesis costs per year will also be presented in relation to type of valve and custom modifications required. This data can be used when counselling patients about the commitment they can expect if they undergo SVR.
Kirsty McLachlan, MPhil, BSc, MRCSLT qualified as a Speech and Language Therapist (SLT) from Strathclyde University (1999) followed by a masters degree at Newcastle University (2004). She has held the post of Lead SLT in Head and Neck Cancer for NHS Lothian since 2006. This role involved establishing and setting up a modified voice prosthesis service for laryngectomy patients with complex surgical voice restoration (SVR) needs. She established a laryngectomy voice prosthesis (VP) database to record VP changes prospectively and has recently published the results of 3 years of consecutive patient data in the Journal of Laryngology and Otology. She considers herself lucky to lead a group of excellent SLT clinicians and one SLT assistant, who all contribute and support these innovative service developments.