Lay summary
Return to work following acquired neurological disability such as stroke or spinal cord impairment, is linked to increased well-being, quality of life and better health outcomes. There is evidence supporting early vocational intervention for people with a new health condition or disability. A larger HRC funded study (19/834) exploring how to best support people to return to work after a new injury or health condition has gathered information from people providing the vocational support, and from people who have received support, however it is not clear how vocational support is conceptualised within the inpatient rehabilitation team. A Career Development placement would enable a research study to collect data from a range of sources (e.g., interviews, audio-recordings of meetings, field notes from researcher observation) to better understand patient and clinical staff perceptions of early vocational rehabilitation, and to gain an understanding of how early intervention is incorporated (or not) into rehabilitation.