Latest / The STA Clinician Podcast / Ep.293: 'Examining the Role of the General Council for Manual Therapies' with Ruth Duncan & Susan Findley

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Ep.293: 'Examining the Role of the General Council for Manual Therapies' with Ruth Duncan & Susan Findley · The STA Clinician Podcast

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You're listening to the STA Clinician Podcast, connecting clinicians across healthcare.
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Okay, we're live. Hey, everybody. How are you doing? Welcome to episode 293
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of the STA Clinician Podcast, formerly known as the Sports Therapy Association Podcast.
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I'm your host, Matt Phillips. And as always, this episode is being recorded
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live on the Sports Therapy Association YouTube channel and Facebook page at
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eight o'clock UK time on a Tuesday.
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Very shortly in this episode, entitled Examining the Role of the General Council
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for Manual Therapies, known as the GCMT
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to most people, I will be joined very shortly by special guests Ruth Duncan,
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chair of the GCMT, and Susan Finlay, vice chair of the GCMT.
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And also with us will be Gary Benson, founder of the STA.
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Before I bring them up, my thanks to Gary Benson for being the host last week
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and throwing me into the guest seat for a change in episode 292,
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which we called It's Not The Person, Rethinking Difficult Conversations in MSK Practice.
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Gary asked me in that episode questions about why after over a decade,
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I finally put my one chat life to bed.
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And with my new website, MattPhillips.education, I'm focusing on communication and behavior change.
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We discussed in the episode patients or clients who are typically regarded as difficult,
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and how the communication challenges we have with those individuals might be
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less about them being difficult and more about the context and the expectations
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and the environments in which the conversations take place.
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So if that sounds of interest to you, then check out episode 292 of the STA
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Collision Podcast. It's not the person rethinking difficult conversations in MSK practice.
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Available as always on all popular
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podcast apps and on the Sports Therapy Association YouTube channel.
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If you have joined us live, then thank you very much. You're welcome to ask questions.
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And when you do, I can bring your comment or question up onto the screen like
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this, for example. As always, first through the door is Sir Glenn Murphy.
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Sir Glenn, thank you very much for joining us.
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Other people are coming through now. So yeah, if you've got some questions,
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then my guests and Gary know very well that they can stop me in my tracks and
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say, oh, so-and-so's got a question. So use that now. If you listen to the podcast,
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then thank you very much. That's great. We appreciate it.
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And if you have got a question, you can always put something in the YouTube feed afterwards.
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Right then, with that said and done, I've left them down in the lobby for long enough.
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Allow me to bring up my guest for tonight episode, examining the role of the
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General Council for Manual Therapies, GCMT, Ruth Duncan and Susan Finlay.
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Good evening. How are you? Hi, everybody. Right. Thank you so much,
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anyway, for giving up your time. I really appreciate it.
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Where are we in the world? Just so I know, get an idea and I'll read it together.
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Where are you today at the moment, Ruth?
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I'm in Glasgow, just north of Glasgow, and I'm looking out the window and we
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have a completely blue sky.
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We've got a beautiful couple of days. So I'm about six miles north of Glasgow
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city centre, a little bit in the country.
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Oh, fantastic. What, so is today officially your summer day?
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Today would be only day, probably. Oh, congratulations. How lovely.
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I caught you in the summer.
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Leslie was here and she's in Glasgow, Leslie Campbell, and yeah,
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we were all sitting here sweltering and she was going, it's cold,
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it's raining, and it's all out there.
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Oh, wow. That's fantastic. And Susan Finlay, where are you at the moment?
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At the moment, I'm in Wales, South Wales, in a small town called Monmouth,
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just sort of north of Cardiff and Newport.
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And it's been absolutely gorgeous here.
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Now, my plants are not happy, but I am.
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It's always a compromise, isn't it? That's all the plants. Yes,
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that's a lot to be said there for the geographical problems we're going through
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at the moment with climate change. I saw the plants, but hey,
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that's not too deep. And Gary, how's the Lincoln contingency? How's it going?
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Yes, it's very well. It's still flat in Lincoln and it's sunny.
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Do you remember, just not to go up on too much for tangents,
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it's just, I remember the first time I was at Lincoln with you and you'd pick
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me up. I think I was doing some course there at the university and you took
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me out for the first evening. Do you remember what happened?
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I probably told you about the one hill in Lincoln and the cathedral built on
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it. But I probably think we went... Didn't tell me about the guy who was going
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to run up that hill and moon to us.
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Yeah, that was it. That was the moon of Lincoln I saw that night.
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That was Lincoln. I'm sure that doesn't reflect what Lincoln's like.
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But yeah, so I always remember that.
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Thank you, Gary, for that. Always etched in my mind.
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Right. Okay. So for the benefit of podcast listeners, hopefully you have heard
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now the different voices.
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We're going to talk tonight, like I say, about examining the role of the GCMT.
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I'm not going to say General Counsel for Manual Therapies again,
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but the GCMT, I think it's how most people know it.
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Before we do that, I thought, I mean, a lot of people know Ruth and Susan for
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the amazing work and the history you've had and continue to have in the manual therapy industry.
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But obviously, for people who don't know you, and we obviously hope there's
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people who haven't heard of you, otherwise it's just an echo chamber.
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Could you give us, this is so tricky, isn't it? But a brief summary of,
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maybe we'll start with you, Ruth, of how you got involved in manual therapy. Sure.
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I, my previous career was traveling tourism and I was living and working out in the US.
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I worked for Walt Disney World and I had always wanted to do massage and Florida
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is a great place for massage schools.
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So I ended up doing my LMT in Florida and then I came back to the UK and I couldn't
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get insurance to practice because everybody turned their nose up at my certificate.
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It they didn't know what it was so I ended up going and doing I think probably
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in those days it was like a level three with Premier,
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so I did my sports massage training and sports injury rehab with Premier and
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I went on and did a few other things after that,
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but I also traveled back to the US a lot to do my fascia release training with John Barnes.
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And I specialized in that when I set up my practice here in Glasgow and just
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kept dipping my toe into lots and lots of different things.
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And somebody once said to me, one of my clients came into my treatment room
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one day and they said, look to all my certificates from the wall and they said,
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what is it you're looking for?
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It was like this big slap in the face to say, okay, jack of all trades,
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master of none. Okay, then what am I going to focus on?
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So I decided to focus on working with pain management and doing remedial bodywork.
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And I continued to do that for a long time and then set up my fascial issue key.
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And that was about 2002, 2003.
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And became really popular worked really hard at it you know when you run your
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own business you're doing everything,
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so printing manuals setting up couches not just delivering the training you're
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the one looking after the teas and coffees as well so I did that,
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and then when COVID happened I got completely frustrated,
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with the government's or Scottish government's guidelines and I was doing my
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degree at the Open University at the time and.
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My final year was one of the units was on legislation it was on evidence-based practice,
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and I ended up reading the COVID legislation and disagreeing with it and I became
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well known to Scottish government for sending them emails complaining,
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and then they eventually asked me to consult on the guidance for Scottish therapists,
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and that's how I got involved with the Scottish Manual Therapist Organization
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because Lauren Forrester, who's the chair of SMTO, she said to me,
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look, you know, we need to collaborate together on this.
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Would you be my vice chair for SMTO? So that's how I got involved with professional association.
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And then from there, I attended GCMT meetings with Lorna and ended up in the
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role that I have to be as chair.
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So that's kind of very briefly how it all came about. Wonderfully concise.
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And a few books along the way as well, where people may know your name from.
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Yeah I've got a hands-on guide to my fascia release which is,
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a book in the same series as what Susan's book is on sports massage and that
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one's in its second edition and then I've got another one coming out in November
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with handsprings for a different publisher and it's called a massage therapist's
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guide to pain touch and perception,
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I got it it's good it's coming out.
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Wonderful. Excellent. Thank you so much. Susan Finlay, how do you follow that?
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I know you can. I know your history.
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I have a few more years on her, so I can bump it up a bit. I didn't say that, Susan.
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So my background is, as you can probably tell by my voice, I'm Canadian,
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and I came in over here in 1993.
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I came over, happened to qualify as a nurse, and my first career was a ballet dancer.
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And so when I came over here, I did not like working within the NHS,
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and I qualified as a health instructor and sports massage therapist.
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And then I got kind of a little bit disillusioned by that by teaching and performing
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every day. So then I went into some more in-depth work with regards to touch therapy.
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And I taught for many years. And then I opened up the NLSSM,
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the North London School Sports Massage. And so that was in 2004.
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And my daughter is now running it, Cassandra Grimozzi. So I'm kind of freed
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up to follow my passion, which is oncology.
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So I teach a lot on oncology.
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I am about to publish, this time self-publish. My first book was with Human Kinetics.
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But I've decided to go self-publishing. So I'm doing a sports massage book,
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and I call it My Redemption.
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And it's about clinical reasoning. And that's kind of what I'm focusing on for
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this book coming out. But that's where I'm in. GCMT.
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I've been with them since yikes 2006? Something like that? Even earlier maybe?
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But yeah my my.
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Reason for being on the council is to hopefully see change. And when Ruth decided
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to become chair, that's the person I want to work with. So that's when I...
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I like that phrase, when Ruth decided to become chair.
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That's because Susan didn't want to become chair. That's it.
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She's much better at it than I am. But, you know, I don't mind being the sidekick
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because of where I fit in really well.
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That's great. Great. This is
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the secret of teamwork, knowing where your strengths are fitting in. Yeah.
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Wonderful. Thanks so much. And that's amazing. And like I say,
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your names are so well known through the industry for all the great stuff you've
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done. So it's lovely to see you both here tonight.
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You both mentioned the GCMT. I guess it would be nice to have a little bit of a history of that.
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It was interesting. Online, I was looking for what you had started.
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There seems to be a discrepancy on the source, but we've got you here now,
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which is wonderful. So, 1999 or 2000?
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It's about that. It's about that. Great.
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Well, that's sort of good. Yeah, the date I found was 1999. We did ask Steve
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Foster at LCSP, because he's got a lot of history. But 1999,
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but the first documents that I have are 2004.
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So, I think there was obviously a gap between 1999 and 2004 for who's got the
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documents. but yeah I've got everything back to 2004.
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Fantastic okay and I guess being part of it especially now chair and vice you
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know a lot about the history of it and you said Susan yourself you've been involved
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with them since like early days 2004 and that
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why for people aren't aware what was the reason it got set up in the first place
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and who were the main players in setting it,
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Yeah, the main players were actually Joan and Bibb, physiotherapists who saw
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a need to maybe regulate sports massage and...
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There were a few other players in that, a number of teaching groups and people
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like ITEC and VTCT and YMC.
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They were all very involved in the initial development of GCMT.
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And originally they were funded somewhat by the King's Fund.
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That's how CNHC came about. So they were funding GCMT's work to develop a overarching,
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profession that was being CNHC.
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There's been people coming in and out over the years.
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And I think, as we'll discuss tonight, we're going to be looking at how the,
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Constitution needs to evolve as in the old days.
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It was very much council driven and now it needs to be driven by more to do
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with what's out there and, you know, the ones doing work at the front.
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So it's a much more flexible structure.
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But yeah, there's a lot of changes coming in in the next year.
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That's good to hear. It's interesting because, I mean, I did,
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obviously, I do my research and I wasn't aware of the original,
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you know, the reasons why it was set up. But it was interesting to see how initially
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a lot of the impulse, it seems, was because in that time there was inconsistent
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educational standards.
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It was looking at regulation and things like that, concerns over that and therapist
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credibility, which is kind of what we're still looking at today and having problems with.
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And that was kind of like 20 odd years ago or more. Yeah, I think it was,
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from what I, having spoken to a number of people who have sat around council, when the GCMT or.
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The soft tissue organization or GCMT is when it was set up it it was there as
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an existence started by people who were absolutely as equally passionate as
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about the profession then as we are now,
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and I think that's what brought people together to to come and communicate so
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GCMT was, you know, the early 2000s.
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And then CNHC came into conversation.
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And GCMT, prior to CNHC, was trying to not regulate the profession,
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but trying to advise the profession.
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And there was a lot of collaboration. There was also a schools forum as well
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to bring schools together to try and have schools having the same standards of practice.
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And the support from GCMT was speaking to its PAs, its professional associations
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who were members, to give them information about,
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can we collaborate together, can we bring the standards together so you as professional
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associations can pass on those standards to your members.
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And then CNHC came in and of course it was establishing legislation in 2012,
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and from what I hear GCMT kind of sat back a little bit wanting to see how CNHC actually fared,
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and kept in touch with Margaret Coates,
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CEO of CNHC, to almost better the W know than the W don't.
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Wanting to actually keep close so that GCMT could support, but as well as be supported by.
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Now, from my own perspective, you know, when I separate myself from CNHC,
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I'm not sure about CNHC at all.
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But from a GCMT perspective, particularly now that we've got somebody else at
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the head of CNHC, being Joanne Shaw.
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I think perhaps there is going to be a little bit more collaboration there.
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So I think the whole existence for GCMT has been about collaboration.
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It's been about trying to guide the profession in a much more beneficial manner,
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value-wise, education-wise and professionalism.
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But that also comes with its challenges because each professional association
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that sits around the table with GCMT has a right to set their own standards and policies.
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So for me GCMT right now we come together to discuss why a PA might prefer that
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way compared to a PA that does it something another way as long as they can
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justify their reasons for doing it,
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GCMT's role is not to police a PA it's to support them in making the right decisions
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for their members because we do have diversity in GCMT we've got a lot of different
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PAs doing different things.
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But it's trying to bring something together so that we can always talk about
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things. And that, to me, is the important thing.
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And I think one of the things, the thread that's going through everything that
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we're doing is the PAs themselves, although they're not identical.
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They all have their personalities and their strengths.
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We're not there to make rigid rules that they have to follow.
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But they all have one thread in this whole existence, is they want to see the profession at its best.
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And not to be railroaded by cowboys. And so even though we might not all agree,
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to how we deliver our courses,
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we do do it with ethical and moral reasons.
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And we do it to the best of what suits our members.
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Yeah. Excellent. Thank you very much. There's loads of information.
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I appreciate it. It's so nice to have you both here to talk us through it.
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Gary, it's been 22 minutes. You've been sitting there, seeing your pencil,
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working away, taking notes. Yeah.
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Reflections? I mean, I think Susan was there slightly earlier than she said
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because I was there 2006 to 2009.
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Susan was already there at that time and well-respected on the council.
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So I think she might have been a couple of years earlier.
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Thank you. Yeah. I mean, she doesn't look old enough. Obviously started in the
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teens, I was going to say. It's a tricky term.
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Yeah i think i left in 2009 and was part of another,
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thing called the sport remedial therapist council which looked to to set some
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therapy descriptors if you like for sport,
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sports massage and remedial massage we were told then and i was a profession
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specific board advisor i think susan was as well to the cnhc when it first was
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incepted in 2010 and i i've worked there 2013,
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but I thought it brought an extra level of bureaucracy but didn't achieve what
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it set out to achieve so I left after my my tenure there they quite clearly,
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said that remedial therapy didn't exist so that the qualifications changed but
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my experience of sitting at some council meetings with some of the awarding organizations and,
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and Susan and I were both there when when the The first Level 5 was introduced
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by VTCT, and they produced a very nice, glossy document which said at the bottom
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in very small print that on completion of the period of training,
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all candidates were expected to achieve 500 hours of supervised practice.
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And we all questioned that at the time, saying how is that going to be possible
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to have somebody supervised for what equated to 10 hours a week for a year?
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So I think the awarding organizations, because they're commercially driven,
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have confused the industry somewhat with changing from award certificate diploma
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to certificate diploma award and,
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introducing numerical levels.
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And I remember at the first meeting when they said they were introducing level four.
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And my question was, what are you going to add into the current diploma as it
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was regarded at the time to make it a level four? and they said,
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we're not going to add anything. We're just going to take something out and
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create a level three. This will be the level four.
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And then we've got the XP training at the level five, which only amounted to
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the extra 500 hours. So I think the CNHC, when it was described as the CNHC,
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sorry, the GCMT sat back and looked at the CNHC.
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I think there was some downward pressure from the CNHC to say,
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we are the top of this tree and the power remains with us.
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And they without consultation of
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the wider industry have changed national occupational standards you know,
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I spoke to Margaret several times and and I found a very dismissive of all of
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the comments that were made by myself and other professional specific board
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advisors and that's why I didn't renew my tenure as a board advisor but you know,
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I during COVID you know I'm not part of the gcmt now there have been occasions
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when i've talked about going back and i kept in touch with paul medlicott during
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covid and and we had a cohesive sort of approach to issuing guidance
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i spoke to susan and i spoke to,
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yvonne and earl a couple of years about going back but i wasn't kind of happy
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with with how it was presented to me and but now i've got a different feeling
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about That's it, and I am more positive.
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Good. That's brilliant. Thanks for saying that. Appreciate that.
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Yeah yeah i think i think there are some challenges you know we are talking
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about the same things we were talking about 20 years ago you know a drop in
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education standards and i think we've got to be vocal and say
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this does meet a standard or this doesn't meet a standard you know now the level
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three sports massage or massage with performance or technical specialist in sports massage
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that's become a fitness industry qualification and a lot of the professional
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associations have a minimum standard of level four for their eligibility criteria.
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Level four you know doesn't mean level four you know some of the courses that
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are advertised at level four doesn't have the course attributes or the necessary
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amount of training that the associations think,
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is appropriate for that level now we have eligibility criteria,
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but but you know one of the challenges and and and talking about sports therapies
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we're going to be doing next week with with Sarah and Kate is,
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you know, sports massage is part of the journey of a sports therapist.
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It's one of the national occupational standards. Now, we have got out-of-date
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national occupational standards at Skills for Health, which expired in 2014,
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and there hasn't been the industry.
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I think all of the associations need to support, you know, a national set of
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standards rather than developing their own.
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And I think the only way we can achieve that is if everybody's sitting around
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a table or a virtual table and discuss that and and i think they were somewhat
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railroaded on the last set in 2009.
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Because there were there were certain things that were wanted in the in the
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national occupational standards,
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which the majority didn't want but they they appeared in there and you know
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and then there's the cnhc when they changed them to cnh 27 or whatever the title list now.
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I don't think there was an industry-wide consultation, and I think that's spoiled to.
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Yeah, I think, you know, I can bring in something else there,
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Gary, that bothers me or does concern me.
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You can have a training provider quite clearly state that they are teaching
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a level three or a level four or whatever it is and whatever,
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whichever awarding body that they're with.
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And you're trying to to encourage a therapist to choose a training course that's
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got what you would consider as a credible awarding body,
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and then you look at their social media and their marketing and what they're
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advertising and telling,
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a therapist to try and hook them in to buy a course is nothing like the training
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program you would hope that a therapist would get at level four or level three.
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You know and and that's what attracts somebody to go and do a training course
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is whatever way that they're promoting that training in a social media post particularly,
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and I can think of quite a few training providers who,
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on paper if I was to sit and look at what they said they taught versus what
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they promote on their website and what they actually have on their social media they are poles apart,
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and that that to me almost makes a bit of a farce over the levels whether it's
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a three or four or five but yet when you look at a website they're still talking about,
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increasing circulation and detoxing the tissues and breaking up fascia you're like well,
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this doesn't match we need we need our training to be modern evidence informed
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and to get rid of some of the nonsense that's in there.
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And I would hope that an evolution of our profession looks at these things instead
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of just restructuring outdated training.
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I think that is a particular challenge for the GCMT and the wider industry. Yeah.
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When you go on social media and you've got one of the most prolifically advertising,
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schools at the moment saying.
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Nothing about standards, but saying, you know, if you want to train with us
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as a sports massage therapist, this time in three weeks, you'll be earning £60 an hour. Yeah.
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You know, it doesn't mention, you know, if we look at the curriculum,
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which informs the syllabus,
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that the training providers make their syllabus from the curriculum but they
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don't have to stick to that they can just take one of the points of the curriculum and focus on that,
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you know another conflict that we have and it's historical and it's still occurring
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today is when when a training provider.
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Is directly linked to professional association which is professional which is
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directly linked to you know another stakeholder in the industry in a crediting body for example so,
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in certain circumstances you've got people who are coming out with a qualification
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it might be an in-house it might be a you know an accredited qualification that's
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had no external scrutiny whatsoever,
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yes and that's one of the dangers that we face yeah and the the difficulty is
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that the average person out there doesn't know,
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what they need to be looking for and this was something that Susan and I along
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with the rest of the council were,
27:39
we were trying to put a document together an information together to help a
27:44
therapist choose wisely
27:47
and to know what to look for in a training provider what questions to ask don't
27:51
just get drawn and hooked in by something they've seen on social media or a price
27:57
for me it's a red flag if a whole massage course is only £39.99 but.
28:02
The average person who's looking to do massage is not aware of that.
28:07
And it's so difficult because you can't outright say to somebody,
28:12
don't do that course, it's crap.
28:15
You need to be very diplomatic, particularly as the role that I've got and the
28:20
role that Susan has, we have to be careful how we say things in public.
28:26
I've just made a mental note and I'm going to make a physical note never to use that phrase again.
28:34
Yeah you know it's it's trying to guide somebody and put up and say could no
28:40
that course is a red flag no i really i wouldn't do that one what about this one,
28:44
and you know and really help the profession choose wisely so that we can maintain
28:50
and raise the standard in the profession because i think that's what all of
28:54
us want and those sitting around the table in council we want more for the profession.
28:59
We don't want people to fall into
29:02
the issues that we had in the learning process. We want better for them.
29:07
I try and reframe it. If somebody asks me to recommend a course,
29:11
I will never recommend a course.
29:13
What I'll say is we get good feedback from X, we get good feedback from Y,
29:16
and we get good feedback from Z.
29:18
But what I want you to consider, and in the case the $39.99 online diploma that
29:23
Ruth entered there, I say, would you, and I try and reframe this, would you,
29:29
go and see a therapist knowing that they had done an online-only course,
29:34
they hadn't had any hands-on practice, no observation, no feedback,
29:38
no formal assessment, and they go, of course I wouldn't.
29:42
So why are you considering doing this? And, you know, we've got one of the biggest
29:46
training providers in the country with online-only Level 5 courses at the moment,
29:50
online dry needling courses, you know.
29:53
We need to, although we can't say that they're good or they're bad,
29:58
I just say, would you go and see somebody to stick needles in you who's only
30:02
done online training? Online training, yeah.
30:04
And also cervical manipulation. Yeah.
30:07
You know, but it is, it's being sitting around counselling, we talk about these
30:14
things and yeah, we do, we sit and we talk about the same things again and again,
30:19
because sometimes it's just like.
30:22
How do you solve this problem for good?
30:25
And I just don't know that we can, but if we can keep on top of things and keep
30:31
putting out the information about, think about it this way, what would you do if this happened?
30:36
So that we're constantly trying to keep therapists being able to critically
30:43
evaluate what they're doing, not just in their professional practice,
30:46
but their choices of their CPD, their choices of what they're going to do and
30:51
how they're going to work to help manage somebody's pain.
30:55
Or promote their wellness you know we do Susan and I talk a lot on the phone
31:01
or FaceTime or whatever it is in between all of the meetings because,
31:06
one we got on really well and two we're both really interested really passionate
31:11
about the same things and I think that's what's really helped us in the role for GCMT.
31:18
We're both front-facing people we've both been in the public eye in public in
31:23
the profession for such a long time we are known,
31:26
and we would hope that people would listen to us and know that we've got integrity
31:32
and we're not gonna we're not there just just for ourselves we actually really
31:37
want more for the profession,
31:39
and one of the things that we are doing you might have noticed quite a bit on
31:43
social media that we're getting quite a bit more vocal and bolder about what
31:49
we say and we're not as shy about.
31:55
Calling people out or calling courses out or calling events out and kind of
32:00
discussing what's the value of that what it what's it going to achieve what's
32:05
it going to do for our profession because you know,
32:09
we we can't have performance art and then be looked at with credibility.
32:17
If we want credibility, then we need to produce things that other professions
32:22
look at and go, oh, I can respect that. That's a good choice.
32:27
A few episodes back, sorry to interrupt because I could just see her and listen
32:29
to you three for two hours happily, but something I think is relevant.
32:33
It was brought up, I think, by Kate from the SST, who's going to be on next week.
32:37
But she kind of reminded us in one episode that of the, I think we estimated,
32:43
I can't remember how many sports therapists there were in the UK,
32:47
but it was, I can't remember if it was like 12, 15, that's when I measured it.
32:50
But we were comparing the totals to what percentage of them are actually a member
32:55
of a professional association, and I think it was like 20%, 80% are not even
32:59
a member of a professional association.
33:01
Yeah, what we did, we took all of the published numbers of the membership associations
33:06
out there, and this is not sports massage, this was generally sports therapy,
33:10
and we estimated around about 5,000 were actual members, not student members,
33:17
but actual practicing members.
33:19
And we looked at the number of people who qualify every year,
33:23
we used some some useful data that we had to say that 75 percent of people who do,
33:28
a course don't work in the industry after 18 months and so we did the maths
33:33
and we come up that of the 5,000 registered
33:37
there's probably 10,000 that are not registered and there are probably 20,000
33:42
who who are qualified and don't work in the industry So,
33:45
how do we appeal to those 10,000 who are working in the industry who don't have
33:50
a code of conduct, don't have a CPD?
33:54
I think that's such an interesting point because I think it's not that these
33:58
people, I get the impression these people haven't necessarily thought,
34:01
I don't want to be part of a professional association. I don't want to spend
34:04
that money a month. I think a lot of them don't even know about it.
34:06
We do tend to live in a bubble where we presume that everybody's looking at
34:09
our posts and everybody's listening to this. Everyone knows our name.
34:12
Everyone's got the book. But I honestly believe that there's a lot,
34:14
especially in sports therapy industry, there's a lot of therapists out there who we're not reaching.
34:21
And if they don't reach us, then however much,
34:25
good word we put out there how how are they going to how are we going to make
34:29
a difference because we're dropping the ocean so i'm interested whether you've
34:31
thought about that or whether you've got any ideas on how to,
34:35
just reach more people so they yeah you know i can add some more numbers to that as well,
34:42
when our cnhc was having its revision in 2019 2020 the document that was sent
34:49
out asking the stakeholders to complete,
34:53
it said that PSA, the Professional Standards Authority, suggested there was
34:58
about 2 million non-regulated social work and healthcare workers in the UK,
35:03
and I stress social work and healthcare.
35:07
So they estimated about 2 million. And I can remember, Susan,
35:12
it was at your old venue, we were having a GCMT meeting, and,
35:16
I think Errol had been at the CNHC meeting and I come back with figures with
35:21
a night of therapists who at that date, which must have been about 21, 22.
35:27
Said there was like 700 people on the register for the CNHC and massage.
35:33
And yet there's supposedly 2 million social work and healthcare workers in the UK.
35:39
And we're like, okay, so I can say that SMTO has more members than that.
35:46
And I think we had a meeting, didn't we, Susan, with Joanne Shaw earlier this
35:51
year. And she said, again, there was somewhere between 600 and 700 registrants
35:55
for massage on the CNHC register.
35:58
There was about 50 sports therapists and about 50 sports massage therapists.
36:03
So you're right. It's how do we capture people?
36:07
How do we encourage people to become a member of a professional association?
36:13
And I can give you one instance that's happened recently.
36:16
And it's just one thing that really highlighted for me is having somebody you
36:21
can pick up the phone to and say this has happened.
36:26
Though we ended up doing a an editorial for the BBC,
36:31
because there's a massage therapist up here in Scotland who has decided she's
36:36
not going to treat men and this
36:37
this was on BBC Women's Hour it was either last week or the week before,
36:40
And because she felt threatened, there was inappropriate behaviour that she
36:46
was experiencing from certain men And she's decided to not treat men,
36:53
Now for me, that's really sad, that one that happened to her,
36:57
obviously But she felt that there was no one for her to speak to,
37:03
Now, this therapist actually is a member of a professional association.
37:08
But for me, when things like that happen, when you have a question about your
37:12
professional practice, if you're a member of a PA, there's somebody there that
37:17
you can speak to straight away.
37:19
And people who work in PAs, they're there because they've probably been through
37:25
it too. They've got that experience.
37:27
And they can guide you. They can support you. They can tell you where to find information.
37:32
They can tell you who else to speak to so for me that's the biggest thing about
37:37
PA and yes there's a difference in price some are 50 pounds SMTO is only 50
37:41
pounds others are over 100,
37:44
but you have to look at what that PA gives you back some PAs do regular CPD,
37:50
which is great because CPD can be expensive.
37:54
So there's that balance there's there's always something the PA is there as
37:59
a supportive mechanism yes you might also get a reduced insurance right because of a block scheme,
38:05
but for me it's the collaboration and the communication and as a lone worker
38:10
as a therapist that is so so important that you have that whichever PA you choose to be with,
38:17
I think it's important that a therapist has that contact.
38:21
If I may there Matt I'm just going to be devil's advocate just for a second
38:24
because there are different associations out there,
38:28
they don't all have a phone number you know some of them you can't contact you have to send an email
38:35
i have between 70 and 80 calls a week i work until 9 p.m at night yeah you know
38:40
taking calls from members who have vulnerability issues we've got vulnerability
38:44
vulnerability resources,
38:46
you know we have fortnightly coffee evening chats we have fortnightly accountability
38:50
sessions and we have a podcast but i think it's a conflict,
38:56
It's my personal opinion. I think it's a conflict. If a professional association,
39:00
is running CPD but also making money from that CPD, I think that's a conflict of interest.
39:07
I think that a training provider should provide training and CPD.
39:11
A professional association should provide support and guidance.
39:14
And where other associations might be regarded as having a business model,
39:19
at the STA we have a support model.
39:22
It's £60 a year for membership. But the value for money you get for that,
39:26
and it's contrary to what I'm telling people about their pricing structure,
39:31
but we're a registered not-for-profit association.
39:34
Some of those claim to be not-for-profit, but they're paying their directors, you know.
39:39
60 70 000 pounds a year um or you know they claim to have a thousand members
39:45
but when you look at their published accounts,
39:47
their accounting is showing three thousand pounds or 100 shares or something
39:51
so there's something that doesn't add up right so i think if you're choosing
39:55
a special association if you're choosing a course if you're choosing cpd,
40:00
check out the people behind them it's publicly available you go on company's
40:04
house you do a search for them
40:05
ask for personal recommendations from people who've done that course don't be
40:10
influenced by what you read on social media because in the open groups a lot of the
40:15
a lot of the responses are commercially
40:18
driven but also as Tristan Attenborough said there's also what we call unconscious bias,
40:23
if someone is only ever trained with ABC Academy,
40:27
to do their level three and their level four and their level five and then all
40:30
of their CPD they will naturally speak very highly of ABC Academy but they can't
40:35
compare that to another training provider who might have a more robust,
40:40
qualification or CPD.
40:41
Yeah, I totally agree with that.
40:46
Again, it's educating somebody to choose the PA that works for them and they have to,
40:53
just as you say, Gary, they've got to ask the questions, they've got to scrutinise
40:57
it and don't just, oh, my school's accredited by them, I'll just become their member.
41:02
They really have to look at them. accreditation is a commercial process and and you know,
41:07
i don't like mentioning names per se but if you look at a lot of courses they
41:12
they say they're fht accredited now i don't know the process they have to go
41:17
through to gain that accreditation but to me
41:20
it's it's seeking to add value to the course by saying it's accredited but it's also opening up.
41:28
A network of 20 000 members from across health and beauty.
41:32
CNHC, the maximum they've had is 154 sports therapists at one time.
41:38
Generally about 50. What the
41:41
CNHC did, they started introducing other therapies onto their register.
41:46
So it was a bums on seats so that they could spend 50% of their income on staff wages, in my opinion.
41:52
And that's publicly available on companies house records too.
41:56
So I think it's an extra level of bureaucracy that doesn't add anything to the
42:01
industry. We're not getting referrals from GP surgeries, as was promised.
42:05
We're not getting referrals from allied health professionals, as was promised.
42:10
So I think, you know, as three government white papers have said in 2010,
42:15
2017, and 2021, professional associations have to be more robust.
42:20
They have to have strict eligibility criteria. They have to have strict code
42:24
of conduct and appeals, complaints and appeals procedure.
42:27
They have to have a strict enforced CPD obligation and policy.
42:33
And that's what we're doing. You know, and that's what we're providing for 60 pounds.
42:37
There will always be somebody who's had a you know a bereavement in the family
42:40
and they haven't fulfilled their cpd we work with them to get them back up to
42:44
speed during their next membership period rather than being
42:48
arbitrary and saying no you can't renew your membership we're a support network,
42:52
yeah and this is i think what gcmt,
42:55
is trying to do is that we are trying to support the professional associations and.
43:02
We have some very young and very small professional associations that,
43:07
you know, don't have all the policies that they need in place and that we can provide.
43:13
But also, I want to bring out the point about a value. And your association
43:19
has a lot of value to your members.
43:21
And the fact that you are a person, a real person, that will talk and pick up
43:27
the phone and have a conversation with them. So.
43:32
When we were most successful at what we were doing Was when COVID hit Because
43:38
all of a sudden therapists could not work And,
43:43
GCND put some emergency protocols together That would help a therapist overcome
43:50
some of those obstacles That were in front of them And all of a sudden they're going like,
43:55
oh, I don't belong to a PA. Well, this is when you should belong to a PA because
44:00
they're there to support you during moments like this.
44:04
And so we're hoping that we can produce value for an individual therapist as
44:11
well as PAs that there's a network of people behind you that can support you.
44:18
You should not be working in isolation because you are part of a bigger group.
44:25
That needs to be elevated and have our profession regarded at a much higher level.
44:31
But when you're getting all these cowboys out there, and these are the ones,
44:36
I have a bugbear with, that we need to help control and then show value for
44:42
what we're doing and what you're doing.
44:46
And if you look at the definition of an association, it's a group of like-minded
44:49
people who are working together for the benefit of the association. Yeah.
44:53
You know, during COVID, there were certain professional associations and training
44:58
providers that if you've done our level five qualification, you're classed as
45:02
a medical professional and you can go back to work. There were a number of complaints.
45:06
I made several complaints myself.
45:09
And they had to retract those statements. You know, Roosh kept me up to date
45:12
and Frank Seeger, he kept me very up to date with what was happening in Scotland
45:16
because sometimes the guidance in Scotland was different to what it was in England.
45:21
And it was certainly different from what it was in Wales. So we had a network
45:25
and I spoke fortnightly to Paul Medley-Cott and I spoke, you know,
45:29
regularly to other professional associations. I spoke to Yvonne at the GCMT
45:34
when she was there at the time as vice chair.
45:36
And I said, well, even though I'm not a member, I'm going to tow the party line
45:41
because during, you know,
45:43
when the SH1T hit the fan, we had to present a cohesive approach to supporting
45:49
the members and the wider therapy industry.
45:54
Right guys it's fascinating to listen to you and it's just a pleasure the history
45:57
and the and the and the level of evolution that you've all gone through and
46:01
the things you've seen is brilliant what i'm interested in doing to wrap this up,
46:06
is we've obviously got i mean i'm biased i know but we've we've heard gary benson
46:11
speak on what the ideal professional association should be,
46:14
by the sounds of it the sta is the ideal one but that's we're setting standards
46:18
for professional associations which we've mentioned that's fine i'm sure there's
46:21
other ones who live up to those standards as well,
46:24
i want to help our listener understand,
46:27
what the gcmt can do to help improve standards you're an advisory body to professional
46:35
associations so i guess you can help
46:37
particularly young professional associations you may get the wrong idea and
46:39
not realize that they're going down a rabbit hole or something but how are you guys going to help.
46:44
Change or improve even if they're just like tiny little steps and what we've
46:48
been talking about today Ruth has done a number of things already that are really
46:53
good and and one of them was working with the British Heart Foundation,
46:57
to talk about how they advertised massage on their website and the incorrect
47:03
information that they put up,
47:06
and so there was a conversation that took place and Ruth really helped them
47:10
to rewrite their information and show the evidence base, take it to their board,
47:16
and they have readjusted,
47:18
their website and the information so that it's the accuracy out there that we
47:24
can get out to all these various associations.
47:27
There's something that we can do. We can network with other people and start
47:32
to bring that level of information.
47:36
To a broader scope of the public and their awareness about what massage can
47:43
do. No, it doesn't flush toxins.
47:45
Do you think that would, sorry to interrupt, but do you think that would then
47:49
help challenge some of the outdated syllabi that we talked about?
47:53
They'd be kind of, because they're, I mean, you can imagine the work it takes
47:56
for one of these massive providers to change all of their papers.
47:59
It all runs like clockwork now because it has done for 15 years or whatever.
48:02
But that would put pressure on them, would it? Sorry, my book that I'm producing
48:06
is called Clinical Reasoning, and it's all based on evidence.
48:11
So everything that you tie in Socrates' peace and love and all of that,
48:17
it's showing how all the evidence is showing what we do and what we do well,
48:22
but also shows what claims we've made and.
48:27
What is the myth.
48:30
But what we do is really good, and we've got to own that.
48:35
And, you know, I put it out there that touch is a value. It has an enormous amount of value.
48:43
We don't have to have value in flush toxins.
48:47
I think, you know, as all of us are educators here, I think we could all say,
48:51
as Walt Fritz did when he eloquently came on our show and said,
48:54
you know, he was embarrassed by what he taught 30 years ago.
48:58
And I said, well, we shouldn't be embarrassed because that one of its time.
49:02
I know, he was so down, wasn't he?
49:04
I'm at a lot of Claire's that I wore in the 1970s, but there's a lot of the time.
49:08
But this is why this is called the Redemption Book, because the first book I
49:12
had things in there about, you know, flushing out and increasing circulation.
49:17
I've said the very things that this second book is going, no, I was full of it.
49:22
Yeah, but it was based on your education at the time, wasn't it?
49:29
Yeah, it's really interesting because Walt and I have very, very similar stories,
49:34
of our training in the States.
49:36
Walt obviously had a lot more exposure to it than I did.
49:39
But Walt and I have corresponded numerous times over our training in the US.
49:47
And I think that's one of the reasons why I'm so passionate of training.
49:52
Yes, we were all, you know, using that phrase, standing on the shoulders of giants.
49:58
But where are the giants now? You know, the big names are not really out there
50:04
anymore. They're turning off.
50:07
And maybe that's a good thing.
50:10
Because, you know, what Susan was talking about there, the British Art Foundation,
50:14
that came about because GCMT was looking at a cautions and contraindications
50:19
document to have available for PAs,
50:22
and the document was there I kept looking at it and going no definitely no and
50:29
no and it's like everything I read I went oh my god,
50:34
we really need to change this and that's where I came across a reference to
50:39
the British Heart Foundation in the Cautions and Contraindications document
50:43
I went oh I don't think so and that's how I ended up.
50:47
Speaking to British Heart Foundation.
50:48
I've since spoken to Macmillan and Cancer Research and the MS Society on behalf
50:53
of GCMT because it's not just about therapists. It's not just about PAs and
50:58
therapists. It's about the public.
51:00
And if we can try and educate the public to ask the right questions and have
51:06
the therapist answering them much more appropriately, then at least we're moving forward.
51:12
I think a lot of it, whether it's the therapist or the patient,
51:17
a lot of it, I think, is about giving both, empowering them to actually go, hold on, is that right?
51:23
Yes. And speaking what's on their mind. And I think that's a missing element.
51:27
We need the public to turn around and going you know you're saying you're doing
51:30
this i read the other day on pha or something or i read this in in susan's latest book that,
51:36
and that's and that's a good way of doing it but it's also therapists doing
51:38
the same thing as well you know going to cpd courses challenging themselves
51:42
you know choosing things they wouldn't normally do then having the conference
51:45
to go sorry yeah i know kind of,
51:47
you've written how many books or whatever but i'm not quite sure what you said
51:50
then because that could really help so we need to somehow empower people you
51:54
know in debates and and how to and i think also i'll go on about this but,
51:58
i think there's always a danger we've got to be so careful haven't we about
52:01
kind of pooping what people are doing and kind of calling people out and,
52:05
i detest so much i mean i used to do a little bit back in the day and i would
52:09
make jokes and be very sarcastic but i realize now that once you see two or
52:12
three things come and go you've got to be so careful because although we're kind of
52:16
saying no that's not the case anymore and this is what we're saying now this
52:20
is could change so much in five, ten years' time, so we've got to think of the
52:22
future as well and be a bit more.
52:25
Because once, I don't think, I think there's a bit of a trend now on social
52:28
media, particularly because it gets hits of calling other people out a little
52:32
bit too violently and laughing and just, you know who the characters are,
52:36
just sitting there with a video behind them and going, what's he doing?
52:38
What an idiot, pausing it.
52:40
And I don't think that works because I think that just makes a lot of people
52:42
who are listening to it go, oh, you're just, this is not. Makes them very detained, sir.
52:47
Yeah, you attack someone, they're going to get defensive and dig their heels
52:49
in and not engage anymore.
52:51
I think the profession, I think so many of the people in the profession...
52:56
Certainly me, I don't do that kind of direct insult well.
53:04
And all it does is make me want to go completely the opposite way.
53:08
I want to be drawn in to explore where I might be going wrong.
53:14
And that's, I think, something that Susan and I have really tried to work with
53:18
in GCMT and and work with counsellors and say, okay,
53:22
could we try this because that might encourage people to do this rather than
53:28
clap them about the face and go, you're wrong.
53:30
That's the common third. I think that's what seems to unite you three.
53:32
I've been sitting and thinking, what is it that unites these three?
53:34
I think that's the common third because Gary was saying, education needs to
53:37
be about reframing it in a way
53:40
so the person you're talking to thinks that they thought it themselves.
53:43
That's the ideal thing, isn't it? You just feed them a little bit,
53:45
give them some reflections of some is they go hold on well that means that they
53:48
can't be doing that and that's how they change their behavior isn't it not by
53:52
just going you can't do this so,
53:54
yeah right look it's interesting because when we when we're working one-to-one
53:57
to people we we have found out that that those people need support and guidance
54:02
they don't necessarily need a solution.
54:05
And professional associations are the same and and you know the the charities
54:09
and the and the and the other bodies that ruth mentioned they just need guidance
54:13
and support some support because they're writing down what they think is is the truth,
54:18
you know and if we don't think that that's truthful it hasn't got the evidence to support it if we can,
54:23
get in touch with them open up dialogue have conversation and guide them towards
54:28
what is more appropriate language as we were speaking about last week then we're
54:33
all winners aren't we absolutely,
54:36
Sounds ground paper, but rather than that metaphor, which normally follows up
54:41
with what's it like in reality, from what I've heard tonight,
54:43
I think combination of GCMT,
54:45
helping professional associations and then professional associations listening,
54:49
then, yeah, we could make a difference. We could make a difference.
54:53
Well, I think Brick and I, you know, we wouldn't be doing this work if we didn't
54:58
think that we could make a difference. Hmm.
55:03
Yeah, exactly. But you're both passionate about the subject as well,
55:06
and that really helps, doesn't it? Yes.
55:11
Wonderful. Right. Well, look, it's 8.59. We've obviously, we've touched on a
55:16
few other things, which you obviously, you've got lives outside the GCMT.
55:20
Increasingly less, I imagine, but you've got other things going on.
55:23
But yeah, I just wanted to check, what else have you got coming up or what have
55:25
you got going on in your own professional lives?
55:29
You've got your books. Yeah, as I mentioned earlier, I've got the book coming
55:34
out in November. I've seen the final draft. I've seen the front cover.
55:38
I have relaunched my workshops completely. I have been teaching some myofascial
55:43
release workshops since COVID, but I've taken a lot of time to completely relaunch.
55:50
I'm teaching a lot more about not pain neuroscience, but what is pain?
55:54
I'm talking about nociplastic pain and looking at identifiers and pain phenotypes
56:00
and looking at touch as input. So it's not about a technique, it's about input.
56:05
So it doesn't matter about the brand or the name of the technique,
56:08
it's all about how it's done to the client. So those have launched,
56:12
I've got the pilot course running in Glasgow, which is sold out for next month.
56:16
And I've got courses in the autumn in London and Bristol.
56:19
And that's going to take you to the end of the year.
56:21
And this is all through InTouch or InHyphenTouch, get the hyphen,
56:26
so InHyphenTouchEducation.co.uk, which will make sure goes in the show notes.
56:30
Presumably people can find out about all of that there, yeah, if they're interested.
56:33
Yeah. And then Susan Finlay, what's happening? Yeah, I'm still passionate about
56:38
the oncology and really developing it.
56:41
I'm speaking quite a bit over the next few months at conferences.
56:46
I'm doing a lot of keynote speaking and whatever about oncology and scar work
56:53
and massage. So that's where I'm focused. And of course, yes,
56:57
the book I'm hoping is coming out next month.
57:01
And, yeah, the school's still running well, and I keep on gardening and keep
57:06
on cycling, and I'm a happy girl.
57:09
That's fantastic. That's good to hear. It's quite infectious as well.
57:12
It's like if Susan's happy, then you can guarantee a percentage of the world
57:15
are going to be smiling as well.
57:16
And that's all susanfinlay.co.uk with a L-A-Y at the end, just in case it's
57:22
easy to change it to an L-A-Y like I did for a while.
57:25
But, yeah, susanfinlay.co.uk, all the information's on there. it's so exciting I mean,
57:29
if we can get more people to read that's it how are we going to improve education
57:32
let's get people to start reading again rather than swiping that would be a
57:35
good start I would have thought,
57:37
so I always get excited when people are bringing books out yeah books are lovely
57:40
wonderful I'm going to look by addressing the comments Matt for my complimentary
57:43
copies of both books and now I can do a review on them.
57:48
Are you before we close up are you going to be gracing us or gracing the doors
57:53
of the NEC in November yeah we're speaking twice Fantastic. That's good to know. Yeah.
58:00
Wonderful. Okay, so people can find out about that. We're going to Therapy Show,
58:03
formerly known as Therapy Expo, and looking up the program there.
58:06
I think they're generally populating the program more and more now, so that'll be exciting.
58:10
Good times. Wonderful. It'll be good to meet up there as well.
58:13
We're obviously going up to north of the border. I've got my passport in place.
58:18
I'm going to Blasgow on the 24th of October, so I'd like to invite Ruth along
58:22
to our conference and we'll see
58:23
my guest. I think Stevie's already been in touch with me about it, yeah.
58:28
Yeah, yeah. We're just finalising the format for next week. Yeah.
58:32
And then we're looking to do something in the East Midlands next spring and
58:35
then hopefully down somewhere in London.
58:38
Might be getting in touch with Cassie about that to see if we can do a new in
58:41
London and we can host a conference down there.
58:44
That's great okay i forgot about that thanks reminding me i did get i think
58:48
maybe we're bringing the wife and kids up for that trip to glasgow i was there
58:51
last time i just loved it to bits i thought it was amazing city and lovely people and um
58:55
yeah so we may be coming back hopefully for that for the sta conference in glasgow
58:59
um with steve and leslie involved it's really great fantastic wonderful right then,
59:05
let's uh just say next week we're kind of going to continue this conversation
59:09
there'll be a lot of similar language going on in episode 294 with me It's called
59:14
Sports Therapy, University Degree or Vocational Training.
59:17
Purposely clickbait. Obviously, it's not one or the other, but just to play
59:20
with the algorithms and to make people go, well, obviously it's this.
59:23
And that's what gets you downloading it. So yeah, sports therapy,
59:26
university degree or vocational training. There can be only one.
59:29
That's the subline underneath.
59:30
And I'm going to be joined by Sarah Catlow, chair of the sports therapy organization,
59:34
the STO, and Kate Williams, head of education for the Society of Sports Therapists, SST.
59:39
So that's going to be a great conversation. I'm sure we're going to.
59:41
They're going to be very interested in listening to this tonight and we'll refer
59:45
back to this i'm sure in that hour if you are listening to the podcast you want
59:48
to join us for that if you're thinking oh i'd like to be in this conversation
59:50
i want to agree or disagree or to share my experiences
59:53
then all you got to do is come along at eight o'clock,
59:56
uk time on the sta youtube channel or on the facebook page i don't know if it
1:00:00
clashes with football but you got to think about your business is the football
1:00:03
going to help you or not and make that decision i don't know.
1:00:06
I'm not judging here. I'm just sowing the seeds and you can do what you like.
1:00:10
But thank you again to my wonderful guests tonight, Ruth Duncan and Susan Finley
1:00:14
at the GCM2. Thank you so much.
1:00:16
Absolutely amazing. I loved it. And Gary Benson as well, founder of the STA.
1:00:19
Thank you to everyone who did join us live. Again, if you do want to join us
1:00:22
on July the 21st, eight o'clock, then do come along.
1:00:25
If you've enjoyed the show and you're listening to the podcast,
1:00:28
then please do us a favor of subscribing to the YouTube channel because that
1:00:32
helps us look more important and more people will read it and it appears higher
1:00:36
in Google. And if you can leave a rating or a review for the podcast,
1:00:39
that'd be amazing as well.
1:00:40
In this time of just having got a moment, but just press that button and leave
1:00:44
a review. Just do five stars. It's easy. Don't think about it.
1:00:47
And it will help this great information. Literally, it's how the system works.
1:00:51
It's how the men of the top have organized it. And they probably are men.
1:00:55
But five stars means that the Google results will appear higher.
1:00:58
It's as simple as that. So please do your bit. If you want to help,
1:01:01
you want to help educate our industry,
1:01:03
put some love and five stars and a rating in the stuff we put out if you like
1:01:06
it and that's it there we go that was my normal plea at the end thanks everyone
1:01:10
again um until next tuesday take care of yourselves and each other bye-bye.