Latest / The STA Clinician Podcast / STA183 'Physios vs. Sports Therapists - LIVE Panel Debate'

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STA183 'Physios vs. Sports Therapists - LIVE Panel Debate' · The STA Clinician Podcast

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You're listening to the Sports Therapy Association podcast, putting evidence
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back into soft tissue therapy.
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Music.
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Hey people, welcome to episode 183 of the Sports Therapy Association podcast.
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My name is Matt Phillips, creativeonechatlive.com and
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this episode of the Sports Therapy Association podcast is as
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always being recorded live on a
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Tuesday at eight o'clock on the Sports Therapy Association
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YouTube channel and the Sports Therapy Association Facebook page but also tonight
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we're also going live hopefully to the Facebook group the MSK Hub supported
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by Physio Matters and Mehab so if you are joining us live from any of those groups,
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be sure to tell us in the comments and proudly say where you're joining us tonight.
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If you're listening to the podcast, then you are able to join us live.
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We've always recorded this live because we like the spontaneity.
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We like putting our guests on the spot.
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We like hearing people say strange things, none stranger than Andrew McCauley
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last week. But yeah, we love that sort of thing.
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So if you are interested in joining us live, just head along along to one of
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those sources on a Tuesday at eight o'clock.
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If you are watching via the MSK Hub group, because of Facebook security,
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it means that if you do want to ask a question or leave a comment and have your
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picture come up, then you will need to click on the link in the post's comments.
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I'm going to put that on the screen as well. So you can see you only need to
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click it once and then it will allow you basically to appear your photo and
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your personal data to appear on the screen.
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I'll leave that on there for a while if you like. It's just the bottom there.
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And he also should see it in the notes. Right, so before we do go into tonight's
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special panel debate, you can see that our physios and sports therapists are
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there proudly in the background, shining their swords and pulling the visors
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down on their armoured faces.
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But I must say, first of all, give a huge thanks to last week's guest,
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Andrew McCauley. I'm just going to bring this up.
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A fantastic episode. I say that all the time, I know, but it was a real insight
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into the the importance of communication.
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It was called Optimizing Communication with Clients and Other Health Professionals,
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which gave us a nice segue into tonight's episode, Physios vs.
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Sports Therapists, a live panel debate.
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For those of you aren't aware of Andrew McCauley, he's founder of the ProQuest
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Sports Medicine, and he's an amazing sports scientist, sports and conditioning
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leader with a degree in PE sports science and a master's in sports and exercise medicine.
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And he has his internationally acclaimed course, Unraveling Strength and Conditioning
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for therapists and there is a course as we mentioned during the episode last
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week this and then what this friday friday february the 23rd and saturday the
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24th in manchester and all details for that.
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Right which brings us back to this episode which i've
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been looking forward to thoroughly for about nine and
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a half years because we're finally going to have it out
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we have finally got hold of three typical
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physios three typical sports therapists as if there was ever such a thing um
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i'm jesting of course but we have got hold of some people thanks to a conversation
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that was going in the msk hub which i recommend let's just have a little flash
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up of that because i I mean, it's a lovely history with the MSK Hub.
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If you're not aware of it, I'm just going to bring that up.
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It started off, I mean, we've got the creator of it here today.
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So Gemma will give us a little chat about it soon, Gemma Oliver.
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But basically it came out of COVID and it started off as the physio group, I think.
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And then it went into the physio and therapist group, which was just like we
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were in the streets rejoicing, getting a mention in there.
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And now it's the MSK Hub. So it's evolved to include basically everyone who
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works with MSK, which is a wonderful thing. and we're fortunate enough to have
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the founder here today amongst our other guests, Gemma Oliver.
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So thank you very much for that. With that said, I'm going to introduce you to our panel.
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If you're in the live lounge, then feel free to ask questions.
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I've told my guests that if there is something interesting in there,
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then they're welcome to jump in and say, oh, John's got a nice question there or something.
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So do feel free to ask questions if you want to. But first, let's go and introduce the panel.
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Music.
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You are listening to the Sports Therapy Association podcast,
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putting evidence back on soft tissue therapy.
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Start off, well obviously let's start off with the physios, eh Gary?
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So we'll start off with the physios in no particular order. Let's have Gemma first of all.
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What I want you all to do is, for the benefit of the listeners,
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just explain who you are and what your role is and what your relationship is
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with other disciplines. Are you part of a multidisciplinary clinic?
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Do you work with other disciplines or are you like a solo, stick with your career,
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don't talk to anybody else sort of person?
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Gemma, would you like to start? Of course, Matthew. Thank you for the invite. Always a pleasure.
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I am a physiotherapist and I will talk a little bit more about that,
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you know, in the next hour.
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I'm a physiotherapist about 16 years now. Gosh, I feel a little bit old.
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I've got a sports medicine background so I've mixed with everybody everyone
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and everything including doctors you know that's for my sins osteos,
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chiros, massage therapists,
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sports therapists everyone in my career and yes I have I have my own views and
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it is a great topic we are all wanting the same thing but.
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It is something that I think we need to help each other educate on.
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So it is a good, good topic. But that's me.
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And just because you're so modest, just a shout out to the MSK Hub.
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I mean, that did start off. I mean, I remember the time when and therapist was
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added. And that was really significant for a lot of other therapists.
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And I think a lot of your congregation, I think, is probably the best word to use.
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Our other therapists, because they welcome this. It was like physio and therapist
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in the same sentence was something really quite new at the time.
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And I think, you know, I think I've said this and you may or may not know,
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but it was grown out of COVID.
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You know, nobody knew what the hell was going on, including the people it was
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with, you know, what was going on.
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And it really, you know, I'm very proud of it. It was something that provided
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a lot of support for me and for a lot of people.
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It has evolved. I think it's had to evolve. We've made some decisions to try
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and keep it very on the longer, similar theme, but actually make it with some
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more direction now so we can help educate.
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But with the same theme of bringing everything together
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so that's where
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it is i think we've got nearly 6 000 members now of all
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walks and background which is what i love and what
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it will always be there is a you
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know a stronger i think there's a more there's a bigger bigger population of
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physios on this and naturally i think sometimes it does waver towards that but
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that's why things like this are important to keep fresh different themes or
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about different different therapists that come and do different types of work
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and jobs and stuff because we all.
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Do the same thing hopefully so well hey
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you're doing a great job and the fact we've got pushing on
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40 people in the live lounge now after an average of you
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know we're going back to like covid times now it's as if there's
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a plague out there again fantastic but thanks for joining us
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live listeners and we will work through your questions as well we've got
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a bit of fighting talk obviously from some of the sports therapists such
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an unruly bunch cecily hislop is already in there with
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mines on the STs and we've got loads of people putting that money
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down it's like something out of Fight Club but we will proceed anyway
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with with decorum and work our way around to the next physio I'm
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in no particular order Caroline thank you for joining us would you like to introduce yourself and
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tell us who you are what you do all right thank you for having me I'm Caroline
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Irish based in Scotland and trained in England I'm a physio a bit longer than
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you Gemma I my career's career so far has been very varied mainly rehab but
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I have worked in private practice in the last four years.
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So I've worked really closely with the sports therapist.
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I still keep my part-time hours in NHS and I've just recently got a new post
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in major trauma and I'll be coordinating the rehab for NHS Fife. So.
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Yeah, I think sports therapists, I've only come across them in private practice, obviously.
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They're not really in the NHS, in Scotland anyway.
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I've seen there's posts advertised for sports therapists down south.
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So I want to find out more about that as well, because I think there's definitely
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a need for them within the NHS too.
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Fantastic. Thank you very much. I'm going to come back to you with your opener
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with something from your son. So I'm looking forward to opening it up.
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Oh, yes, indeed. Oh yeah, you say that. There's a little bit of a hook there for people.
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We'll come back to that. Another time, time for another physio.
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Let's make time for physios.
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Let's give more than 50 minutes, which is normally what they only give to patients. So let's have Paul.
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Paul, would you like to introduce yourself, mate?
8:58
No worries. Yeah, I'm Paul Collins. I run multidisciplinary clinic in private practice.
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Graduated in 2006, worked in sports, blah,
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blah, blah blah and then yeah so run multidisciplinary clinic with sports therapists
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and physios working alongside each other and then just started up a recruitment
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agency on the side so no all good so i definitely see value in both so i'm going
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to sit on the front right in the middle.
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Right now we're trying for now for now
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now yeah we'll see how we go yeah yeah but right
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so thank you very much physios it's like university challenge i don't know what
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you can see on your screens but at the moment they're all at the top it's like
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a fantastic and then down in the basement with a little table set up and a drip
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in the background we've got the sports therapist so Anna Maria would you kindly
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introduce yourself let us know who you are and what you do,
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I my background is massage therapy and then I graduated as a sports therapist,
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But I recognize or kind of present myself as a soft tissue therapist.
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And I had the opportunity to go and do master's in physiotherapy.
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But I decided not to because I decided I don't need to.
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I work very collaboratively with physiotherapists, osteopaths and chiropractors.
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And I learn tremendously from them. I run a clinic where we have sports therapists
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and physiotherapists and massage therapists.
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And yes, I don't think there is even a battle to be had.
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Well, actually, there is actually.
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Things are going to change in 10 minutes. Fantastic. Thank you very much,
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Anna. Thanks again for having time to join us. Becky.
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Yeah. Hi. Hi, I'm Becky Carroll. I'm a graduate sports therapist.
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I've been working I work on my own
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so not in a multidisciplinary clinic but I
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do have a lovely set of therapists and
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health professionals around me that I've come to know over the years
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so I've been working for 17 years which is quite scary
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to say out loud I did look at
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doing a physiotherapy master's but I decided
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against it in the end purely because in the interview you
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they were asking a lot about how my background as a sports therapist would help
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in the nhs and the nhs wasn't something that i was looking to venture into so
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that's the only reason i didn't really continue with that yeah that's me fantastic
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thank you very much for your time as well and then last but not least gary benson.
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Hi, everybody. Gary, my image doesn't belie the number of years I've been in this industry.
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I come from a military background, then fitness industry and sports coaching,
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sport remedial massage and then sports therapy, both as a diploma and advanced
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diploma, plus academic qualifications.
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I founded the STA over 10 years
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ago now because I was disappointed with the representation
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and the false promises that we
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were you know being made to to us fantastic brilliant
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thank you very much for that right so i'm just
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noticing now i mean we're all
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a lovely bunch of people and we're joking about physios against
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sports therapists but what i'm hoping from tonight people are going to accuse me
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of just picking nice people but yeah i have picked
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nice people but the fact is we've got people from loads of different backgrounds and
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it's kind of already we're showing that just because you're a physio or
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sports therapist doesn't define who you
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are it sounds obvious but what i'm saying is if we can
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all get along then the whole world can get along but i hope
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people don't accuse me of cherry picking you know it's just i've tried
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to get a large variety of people from different backgrounds and that so right on
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with the show then so we'll start
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off with why i wanted to put this debate together maybe and it
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happened in the msk hub and it was something which happens
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i think quite a lot and it and it is an issue more so from
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some people for others and for many different reasons and basically
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for the for the listeners who aren't aware it was one
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of those cases where in this case a physio had
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spotted that a sports therapist was advertising physiotherapy
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referring to physios in their clinic and there isn't any physios and there's
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therefore no physiotherapy happening and their reaction was i'm going to report
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them to the hcpc which is a regulator and i think that's something happened.
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Inside the other day, but I think it's something I've seen a lot.
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And I think it's something which we've all kind of experienced. So...
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Who should we start off with? Maybe, oh, Gary's got his finger up.
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What I wanted, first of all, is just for someone to explain what the HCPC is
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and why they are the person who you'd report it to. What would their action be?
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Who feels? Well, I'll come in then, Matt. The Healthcare Professions Council was historically HPC.
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They have they oversee the regulation of 14 or 15 individual therapies,
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they're they're remit and i i've dealt with them quite
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a lot over the over the years because we've had
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incidents where our members have been reported and and
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quite alarmingly the the hcpc that
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they're i mean i'll share all of the notes
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that i've got on the on the show notes but basically if.
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If one of my members was advertising physiotherapy
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in their in their clinic that's not
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actually against any rules or regulations as long
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as that physiotherapy is provided by a
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regulated physiotherapist yeah so the
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act of advertising is not an issue the the
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issue comes when people are trying to
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mislead that they are a physiotherapist and
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in in that case then the hcpc would
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issue they would issue a warning they're doing
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investigation they might issue a cease and desist notification
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and if the problem occurred again then they
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do have available to them a thousand pound
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fine option and that's for each proven misuse of
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title so if if somebody comes into
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our clinic as a sports therapist and they go home and say
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great physio session with gary this afternoon and i
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don't see that because i don't follow their social media but somebody
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reported that it would be very difficult for
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hcpc or the regulator to
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prove that i'm misleading that
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i'm not that i'm a physio so there are lots and lots of variables at play here
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but but basically hcpc from my perspective have always been extremely helpful
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in in explaining what goes goes on but to other people they have found them
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quite autocratic and quite threatening.
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Okay right so i want to start off from
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the perspective of physios now obviously you guys aren't representing all
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physios at all it's a personal thing how you react when you see
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something like this but either on your
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own behalf or understanding the feelings of colleagues what is the problem for
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debate what are the reasons for the this kind of hostility that physios feel
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when they do see a non-physiotherapist using the name and it could be something
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you felt in the past and don't feel
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now but anything what are some of the reasons why people get in the tis.
16:25
Well, I mean, I used to have a kind of feel that this physiotherapy name was
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some big, big thing when I first graduated.
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It's quite an achievement to become a physiotherapist, especially coming from
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a sports science background.
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But yeah, and over time, I've kind of come to realise that, you know.
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We can be labelled whatever type of therapist we are.
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At the end of the day, we're trying to get people out of pain and into full function.
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And whether it's by an osteopath physiotherapist or
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a sports therapist doesn't really matter but i think sometimes
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for example you might be out and someone will go oh i see so
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and so they're my physio and i'll be like oh actually
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well they're not actually a charted physio but then i'll be like it's not
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even worth going into that with them and does it really matter i'm
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not i don't know so yeah the whole thing is
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sometimes i guess as physiotherapists you feel you've achieved
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that kind of chartered physiotherapy status you
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just want to defend it a little bit i think the other
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side of it and coming from the group i think and this isn't necessarily
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my opinion but recognizing what a lot
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of people on the hub have said is that it is a protected title and
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i think that is unfortunately is what
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it comes down to and and as and i agree with paul you
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know it's an achievement for anybody to qualify in sports
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therapy or anything but i think it's when
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it ever comes down to it on the group or these conversations
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it always comes down to the fact that it was a
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protected title and you know backing some of
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the people that were met you know in the chat that you mentioned and referenced through
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the day matt is that maybe they are of an older generation where when it was
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protected it took a lot to get protected and i can understand some people thinking
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okay this took a lot to do we want to withhold this you know I'm proud to be
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a physio I don't hold that kind of.
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Gold label as such to it as I said and
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I alluded to at the start I've worked with lots and
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lots of different professionals lots and lots of good physios some
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bad ones lots and lots of good sports therapists and some
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bad ones and I don't think it has anything to do with whether
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they're a physio or a sports therapist it has
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a lot to do with what they're like as a person and we'll come to
18:34
that I'm sure but I think that is kind of
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from a physio background where some of the feeling comes from it's
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this title now I know you said in your sort of show
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notes is that you know does it matter and I
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think this is what we need to get into you know yes okay reporting is
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one thing and it's how we go about that how we educate people on that and there's
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some comments already which you'll come on to saying that you know it's the
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public perception and that is the battle I think and I think a lot of the time
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sports therapists don't classify themselves as physios but their patients Patients
19:06
will go away and say, oh, I've had some physio.
19:08
And I think that is a big, that's difficult. I think that's really tough.
19:12
Brilliant. Okay, there's loads of points in there. Yeah, sorry,
19:14
I'm just going to, because there's so much to go through.
19:17
There's loads of points in there we'll unwrap, Gemma. Thanks for that.
19:19
There's loads of different reasons.
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I just want to hear Caroline's perspective as a physio and also mix into that
19:26
the story you told me about your son's decision.
19:30
Yeah, so my son is really good at coaching.
19:34
He's really into sport he's quite academic and I thought oh you would actually suit being a physio,
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and he's like oh no you just want me to be a physio because you
19:43
are one and I said no no I actually think you could go down the more
19:46
sporty route the MSK route and he
19:49
was like no no no but last week he came in from a careers event at school and
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he said I think I know what I want to do and I was like okay I want to do sports
19:58
science and he handed me two prospectus prospectuses and And then the snob in
20:04
me kind of looked at him and went, okay.
20:08
So, how are you going to get a job? That was the first reaction I had,
20:14
even though I have worked with sports therapists.
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And I think there's this, you know, if you do physiotherapy,
20:19
you're going to work in the NHS, you've got a secure job.
20:22
But in the last few years, you know, as you said, Gemma, before that.
20:27
You know, there was no jobs and physios had no option but to go into private
20:31
practice straight from uni.
20:33
I think in university we
20:36
cover so much that well I'm
20:40
not going to say I'm jazz but sports therapists do.
20:43
So much more hands-on because I think
20:45
physios have to do so much that sports therapists
20:49
don't when it comes to neuro when it comes to
20:52
respiratory you know we have to learn
20:54
about legislation in relation to the NHS and you
20:57
know things and how I suppose
21:00
I said in the chat before that a physio would
21:04
work closely maybe with a social worker an ot in the nhs it's kind
21:07
of geared up to work in the nhs in a way and yeah
21:10
i was just okay but now i'm
21:13
really supportive of my son doing sports science because
21:16
i have worked closely with sports therapists and i can see how
21:19
we can work really well together we
21:22
can collaborate and i can see how some patients are
21:25
best suited to a sports therapist to begin with you know part
21:28
of their initial you know they can can do the objective the
21:31
subjective just as well as a physio can that's great
21:34
i love that story because it's just an example of biases and we have
21:37
all got biases you know if you're a physio you're probably going to want
21:39
your kids to be a physio you just naturally have it inside but i never
21:42
thought over a sports therapist even though i've loved you in the last four
21:45
years yeah i think that's natural and i think that's the reason why a lot of
21:48
people just stick to what they are because they're proud of what they are and
21:51
anything that dilutes it is going to be scary so right thank you physios and
21:55
we're going to get we're going to try and keep structure the first ten minutes
21:57
of this. We'll now go over to the sports therapists.
22:00
Becky, sorry, I interrupted you. What was your reaction to that? What did you want to say?
22:05
Or is it gone now oh no no i was gonna say what i don't think what helps is that we.
22:11
The general public team seem to use the word physio as a verb don't they you
22:14
know which doesn't help it kind of dilutes the physiotherapist title that's what i was gonna say,
22:21
yeah and i was just thinking i had a greek patient once and
22:25
he reminded me what you know the origin of the
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word physiotherapy it comes it means natural healers
22:30
yeah yes so yeah i think we
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it's how we use the word physio sometimes
22:36
does it belong to
22:39
a physiotherapist the word physio that to me
22:42
is the point Gemma before said for people becoming
22:47
chartered was a really big thing those were different times it was the need
22:54
then to have the charter status and to protect the title the times have really
23:01
changed The healthcare needs,
23:03
healthcare landscape is different from a perspective of the provider,
23:08
but also the people that seek that.
23:11
So I think this is a great discussion because it really shows that what is more
23:16
important is the title or is somebody's scope of practice, which we need to
23:21
make clearer to somebody.
23:23
Because actually, to me, we need to focus more on the type of training,
23:28
the training respecting the scope of practice, reflecting the training,
23:31
and then the type of, let's call it specialism, because ultimately,
23:35
all of us, we do people's care.
23:38
We are all carers, call it MSK care, we are all supporting people in pain and injury.
23:45
Some of us might have different specialisms, some others might have different scope of practice.
23:50
But ultimately we're all part of a
23:53
care system so shall we stop focusing too much on
23:56
names i think i think you know things need
23:59
to change from hcpc level yeah yeah
24:02
it's like um sometimes with the
24:05
sports therapy side people go oh do you only treat sports
24:08
injuries yes but you can have back pain and it's not a sports injury so there's
24:14
always going to be different perceptions of the i think one of the things i
24:19
want to bring up as well is i mean a lot of sports therapists and gary will
24:23
see this a lot we've talked about this before is a lot of sports therapists,
24:26
call themselves physios or physiotherapists because inside they're not proud
24:30
enough of what they do they've got this fear and i think that's quite an interesting
24:34
thing because it can be overcome hopefully through things like this podcast
24:37
through things like us talking now there's this idea that people are going to
24:40
respect you more if you call yourselves a physiotherapist And that's part of the problem.
24:44
So I think that's one side of it. But then there's also this idea,
24:48
which I want to tap into as well, with...
24:51
The public are going to come to your clinic more if you use the word physio and physiotherapy.
24:56
Now, we can slowly try and educate them. But I'm wondering with things like
25:00
Google searches, if you put physio or physiotherapy in your services,
25:04
does it come up higher? Or is that a little bit of a myth?
25:07
Or is the fact that you're going to get more people coming through your door?
25:11
Gary, you were shaking your head there and you've crossed your arms.
25:15
I've got long arms. It's just comfortable. That's fine. It's just body language. Yeah.
25:21
I think what we have to do, we have to talk about sports therapy and regulation.
25:26
It's not going to happen. Okay. And anybody who puts on their website that statutory
25:31
regulation is going to happen or they're actively pursuing it is the same as
25:35
me saying I'm actively pursuing the 100 metres world record.
25:39
It's just never going to happen. Now, on the 1st of the 3rd,
25:44
2006, the original applicant applied to the HPC at the time.
25:48
And I'll share all of these minutes in the show notes at the end, Matt.
25:54
And they were asked to go away and consult with Basrat at the time,
26:01
who were the other stakeholder, and come back and present a cohesive application.
26:07
Application and I believe, I haven't seen it myself, that the response was that
26:14
the applicant preferred to maintain their elite status and so wouldn't work with BASRAP.
26:20
It then went again on the 11th of May 2006.
26:24
Again it was referred back to the original you haven't consulted let's do this
26:30
again and then on the 2nd of February 2011 the third application went in much
26:35
the same that that it wasn't put, you know, it didn't go any further.
26:39
And that's because of a number of reasons. One of them was that in February
26:44
2011, there was a government white paper called Enabling Excellence.
26:48
And that spoke about reforming regulation. And it spoke about the machinery
26:54
of government required at that time to regulate a profession was hundreds and
27:00
hundreds and hundreds of hours and between three and five million pounds.
27:04
And it was only going to be appropriate if the government decided that the public needed protecting.
27:10
And, you know, I don't want my profession to be seen as a danger to the public.
27:16
I don't think regulation would work. Regulation's not working now.
27:20
The HCP, so you only have to look at the disquiet within the physio world with CSP.
27:26
Look at what happened during COVID and the categorization.
27:30
So statutory regulation is not going to happen to us. We are not allied health
27:35
professionals, despite what it might say on people's websites.
27:38
The NHS has in England, Scotland, and Wales and Ireland have a list of the allied health professions.
27:44
And if we keep going on and elevating ourselves above our status,
27:49
we're always going to continue getting into arguments.
27:52
I think that the way things are going at the moment, we've become a semi-private healthcare system.
27:59
The NHS is very good at responding to emergency medicine situations,
28:04
but the general public are now voting with their wallets and their purses,
28:09
and they're making a choice to go and see somebody and
28:13
that somebody has to make a connection and I don't believe and the
28:16
reason I was shaking my head was I don't believe that because
28:19
somebody says they're a physiotherapist it makes a connection I think it's a
28:24
personal thing and I'm it's lucky for me I live in a rural location I don't
28:29
work in private practice but I didn't have competition and word of mouth was
28:34
my my way of making connection with people.
28:37
I love that actually because andy
28:41
picks up on what matt said the problem is we are not proud enough of our own
28:48
profession i'm talking about from massage therapist to sports therapist diploma
28:53
or graduate sport therapists we are not proud enough of our professional identity.
29:00
And we all want to be physios. With all due respect to physio,
29:04
of course I love physiotherapy, osteopathy, chiropractic.
29:08
But we don't need to want to be physios. We can provide the same care for that type of population.
29:16
Yeah, we might not be able to work in NHS.
29:18
Personally, I've been in practice for 22 years. I want to work in NHS.
29:23
You know, so with all the... So actually, I
29:26
think we fulfill a really nice niche
29:30
selfish we we look after an health care
29:33
part that nobody's looking after i
29:36
just i i think i i
29:38
agree and some of the points that you well everyone you and gary
29:41
have made are spot on really you know what what is the need it
29:45
is a very different time i agree that you
29:47
know it was obviously very hard to get the type or protected so
29:50
people you know feel like they want to keep it absolutely but why do we need
29:56
it now like you said it was a very different time there wasn't as many sports
29:59
therapist then there's now a very different market and you know there's some
30:03
comments I think that you'll probably see and you'll touch on about NHS and
30:07
as a physiotherapist I you know after.
30:10
Before Covid actually I moved back from London and I moved away from sport for
30:13
a bit I became very disillusioned with the title because people were having
30:17
very bad experiences I worked for London in a very good clinic but people were
30:22
having rubbish physio experiences and were coming to our clinic because it had a good reputation.
30:28
And I had to spend a lot of time just getting people back on board.
30:33
Now, you know, I back myself, but a lot of my skills come from communication, come from rapport.
30:39
They don't come from my physio degree. They come from who I am,
30:43
you know, and the way that I'm able to talk to people.
30:45
The rest of the stuff I've learned, I would say clinically now I probably use
30:49
10% of what I learned in my physio degree. You know, I constantly feel,
30:53
I think like most of us, that you don't know enough and you want to keep learning.
30:57
And I think we all feel like that at times.
31:00
It shouldn't just be about the title. I also, you know, as Caroline said,
31:05
I think we've got to remember that when you study as physios,
31:08
it was always set up from an NHS point of view, and it's set up as a clinical role.
31:13
Private practice and MSK practice is one third of that training.
31:19
And I think that's a huge difference as well. So, you know, there's two arguments there.
31:22
One, the training for a physiotherapist isn't just to go into MSK practice or
31:27
private practice or sport.
31:28
It is for for anyone who may want to go into respiratory care,
31:32
neuromedicine, elderly care, you know, orthopedics, pediatrics,
31:36
and it's just a completely different course and clinical pathway.
31:40
Whereas your MSK is one year of training, whereas a sports therapist would spend
31:45
three years what a physio would do in one year.
31:47
Yeah. And if you look at that, you're a lot more skilled from an MSK point of view is my argument.
31:54
So we have to get rid of the, you know, in my opinion, and
31:56
get rid of these titles and focus on what people can
31:59
offer what we're looking at from a patient point of view and
32:03
you know just getting the guidance a bit better
32:06
about how we approach these debates on reporting and
32:09
all that so some one of the things that's popped up in the
32:12
past with the difference between physios and sports therapists
32:15
is being able to assess someone's
32:18
spine now that's come up quite a lot of times in
32:21
the past oh that's they've got a sports therapy degree but
32:24
they're not allowed to assess the spine i don't
32:27
know but then other people say differently so i
32:30
think it's because of the range of courses in sports therapy that
32:33
there are and the different types of graduate or and sports therapists from
32:38
either certainly certainly as a physiotherapist a curriculum there's a little
32:45
because you have such a broader yeah training in respiratory,
32:51
circulatory and so on, you're.
32:54
Red flag knowledge your pathology knowledge is.
32:57
Superior okay that's because you
33:00
are able to make connections that in
33:03
a sports therapy curriculum you might not have
33:06
but this is where and somebody
33:09
i think he was mark there he was talking about nhs
33:14
and the role of the physiotherapist i do to
33:17
think that actually we can start changing people's
33:20
view of what physiotherapy and and zone so you
33:24
know i when people complain oh they haven't touched myself but
33:27
they don't need to touch you the physiotherapist don't need to
33:29
touch you that's why you're coming to me okay so there
33:33
are you know you can work very well together and i
33:35
often refer to colleagues for
33:39
complex injuries where i think do you
33:41
know what i am not quite sure here i quite
33:44
like a physio more than an osteopath or
33:47
chiropractor to actually double check having
33:50
a second opinion for diagnosis from them because your
33:54
your understanding of pathology is a bit but i'm okay
33:57
with that i've got no problem to say actually you're highly
34:00
higher trained in the in that
34:03
part than i am yes that's
34:07
an interesting point because I worked for a year with Gloucester rugby
34:10
team and the videos there were their role was to diagnose and myself and Susie.
34:16
Who were the sports therapists we were there to do remedial work and treatment
34:19
and then we had the the guys in the gym who would do the rehab so similar to
34:24
what you're just saying there. So doesn't it work wonderfully?
34:27
Yeah it worked really really well. I would agree. There
34:30
was respect you know across all three sectors for
34:33
what we did but then also say that there were there was
34:36
crossover yeah it worked really really well so
34:39
it's it's finding the right person for the patient at
34:43
the right part of their journey and yeah so the sports therapist
34:46
I worked with in private practice if there was any neuros or if they felt oh
34:50
this is a bit more neuro they would just get us to check you know and if we
34:55
felt it needed onward referral we would and I think that was one of my questions
34:59
yeah in my clinic the sports therapist referred to the physio if he wasn't sure or she wasn't sure.
35:06
And then we would liaise with the GP if we needed to. So is there any sports
35:11
therapists that would, you know, write letters to other professions or do you just...
35:17
Well, I'll come in on that because this then goes back to the allied health professions.
35:24
The way that most doctor surgeries are set up now, and despite the use of voluntary
35:30
registers or accredited registers under the Professional Standards Authority,
35:34
which purported to say that, you know, doctors can refer to a complementary
35:42
natural health care council registrant, for example, but they don't.
35:46
They stick within the, you know, the allied health professions.
35:51
And I advise my members whilst it's great
35:54
that we want to be able to write these letters to doctors they're
35:57
not met in 99% of cases they're not met
36:00
with much respect at all you know they're quite dismissive so I think it's always
36:06
better to to have a local network of people and what we have to understand here
36:11
everybody is on a rehab continuum what we need to do as as practitioners is
36:17
recognise where our skill set puts us.
36:20
And Paul mentioned it earlier on, return to function.
36:23
Great, that sums up what the physios do. It's return to the activities of day living.
36:28
What I do is more coaching. It's more sports specific, it's more technique.
36:33
It might be more sports trauma.
36:36
That's where we're specialists. But all of the time when we're going through
36:41
this, and Caroline said that then, if we have a doubt...
36:45
Then we've got the backup of going to the physio and say, can you just double check this?
36:49
Because it's not responding the way I think it should respond. Am I missing something?
36:55
And we have to respect that. We've all got a point, a specific point on somebody's journey.
37:01
We can't know it all, can we? We need to know who to go to.
37:06
For neuro, for example, you know, obviously physiotherapists,
37:10
and I'm really linked with one of the clinics locally here,
37:13
you know they see those patients so much more often
37:16
so they actually they have also that experience which i
37:19
do not have so for me so much better to send
37:22
them to them gary i have to i mean my this is
37:25
my experience you obviously know more also because of your position in
37:28
sda i disagree about not writing to the doctors because actually i think it's
37:34
slowly slowly is through those letters that we are communicating to the primary
37:41
health care providers that we exist and we are professionals.
37:47
They might not refer to us, I agree, that's right also in certain cases, but they know we exist.
37:54
And this is, I think, how slowly, slowly we can change that perception.
38:00
The way that that will change, Anna Maria, is
38:03
you know my doctor i knew him from the tri club he would tell people you know
38:09
if they're on the waiting list for a physio appointment which which was generally
38:12
26 weeks they'd say just call and see gary at the end of the road and he'll
38:16
sort you out in a couple of weeks time so it's building those personal relationships
38:19
which is making the changes but generally speaking.
38:23
It's it's not as respected as it might be yeah well i've got a question physios
38:29
how much Do you think, not you guys, because you're kind of like...
38:34
More informed but how much do
38:37
you think physios in general are put off when they do
38:40
see an abundance of just instagram
38:43
photo after photo of like 50 cupping procedures
38:46
and and and kind of bad basically
38:49
poor information coming out from sports therapists they probably
38:52
tie in misinformation coming out from sports massage
38:55
therapists do you think that holds back a respect
38:59
which physios could have for sports therapists because they
39:02
think oh they're just gonna cut them to death or they're just gonna think that
39:05
they're breaking down scar tissue with their elbow is that an issue do you think
39:08
with some physios i don't you get that across physios as well matt and i think
39:12
i you know it goes on your personal preference you know you again another huge
39:17
podcast and we had this over covid you know hands-on hands-off debate that's
39:21
not a physio debate that's a a whole you you know, therapeutic.
39:24
You know, treatment debate, isn't it?
39:26
And so I don't think it would put them off.
39:30
I think we are bogged down with this title thing.
39:33
And I think that's from my feeling of looking at the group and opinions over
39:37
the past few years, it's a title thing.
39:40
And we've got to try and break down those barriers for all the reasons that
39:43
you've all said, and the education.
39:46
And it seems, you know, there's a lot of comments that I'm sure you've seen, Matt,
39:49
is it's patient patient perception that is and
39:52
can you be bothered explaining to the
39:54
patient the difference when they don't
39:57
understand it anyway you may probably not and i don't blame anyone for that
40:00
for not doing that you know they're not illegal is it worth it but we have to
40:04
be a bit more collaborative we are some of those people you know i we we've
40:09
been seeing that for the last few years and you know they're quite young oh
40:13
yes go and report because they should not call themselves physiotherapist whoa,
40:20
actually just sit back a moment yeah it is a protected title but there are ways and ways it seems to.
40:30
Irritate and bring up some quite,
40:34
you know quite emotional that it irritates
40:38
sometimes and I think you're right you know some are more informed
40:41
I don't know you know Matt I don't know why it would
40:44
get some people's back up it does shock me
40:47
sometimes but I come we're all quite cohesive here
40:50
I know you know we have stroke title but you know
40:53
maybe we would get some different opinions with other people that identity isn't
40:56
it it's that strong strong identity then they feel like you're
40:59
touching my identity or you are less skilled why you
41:02
want to be called a physiotherapist that's what
41:05
my how many physios do if a physio had to draw or had to say what does sports
41:10
therapist do would they say well they just cover them with kinesio tape and
41:13
just keep rubbing them until they say or do some physios doing that as well
41:19
i mean if you looked at the what a sports therapist is.
41:23
Studied and even the syllabi will we've
41:26
had guests saying that what you study on sports sports therapy degree will
41:29
change depending on the university and depending on the tutor and
41:32
everything but if you look to not university level but
41:35
the sort of things which are still being taught generally apart from at the
41:38
st school and apart from mike grice and a few exceptions i can count on my hand
41:41
it's pretty horrifying stuff still you know the claims that are made is that
41:46
something that makes physios think well how are we going to work with these
41:49
people if they're still teaching you you're you know doing this and that and
41:51
well can i can i read something from the hcpc website.
41:56
And it's about the pillars of underpinning sports therapy and physiotherapy.
42:02
I'm going to go off camera. I won't be able to see you, but,
42:06
you can obviously hear me. Now, there are five distinct areas of competency
42:10
for graduate sports therapists.
42:12
They are prevention of injury, recognition and evaluation, management,
42:17
treatment and referral, rehabilitation and education.
42:21
Now, this is the HCPC website, bear in mind.
42:24
There are four distinct pillars that are given as being integral to physiotherapy,
42:30
therapy massage electrotherapy exercise
42:34
and kindred methods of treatment don't don't
42:37
the pillars gary god that's another town podcast yeah
42:41
well i'll share this but apparently there are over 50 kindred treatments available
42:46
but but you know there is a lot of crossover yeah again it comes back to respect
42:52
you know respect your scope of practice and if you if If you're not getting
42:56
gains as you think you might,
42:58
go and seek help from somebody else.
43:01
At the end of the day, we have like sports therapists and physios in our clinics, right?
43:06
We meet up once, we do a full day CPD every month just because all the clinics
43:11
are spread out quite a lot.
43:12
We don't go, there's a sports therapy section and there's a physio section.
43:16
We'll come in and we'll do like running biomechanics, for example.
43:20
And we'll all sit and do that just because you're a physio, just because you're a sports therapist,
43:24
it doesn't mean you can't do running biomechanics or
43:27
if we had a session on cupping it doesn't mean
43:30
the physios wouldn't do the cupping where everyone would get involved in it
43:34
it's up to that practitioner to then go back to their patients that week with
43:38
the knowledge and training that we've had and use it whether they like to or
43:42
not we don't we don't control how they treat in that room but the training's
43:47
all the same as well so yeah there's definitely crossover.
43:50
And that is the answer. Is that the answer? You know, there is a lot of crossover
43:53
in a lot of the things that we do.
43:55
I work singly now just in my own clinic, but I previously worked for Andy Hosgood's clinic in Summit.
44:01
And we're the same sports therapist, GSR. There's no sports massage just because there isn't one.
44:06
I'm a hands on physio, but a mixture of physio. There is lots of crossover.
44:13
And I'm just thinking we're really relegated, regulated physios.
44:18
So i'm kind of like jealous that maybe sports therapists are not regulated you
44:24
know you are you regulated you are do you have audits and things and no no i
44:30
i think we we should all be careful what we wish for i know sports therapists
44:35
in general are wishing for regulation,
44:38
physiotherapy in general wishing for less regulation.
44:42
In two days time when these hit so i
44:44
don't know if anybody knows but every two years we have an an audit protocol
44:48
yeah comes through and everybody dreads it
44:50
because it's random and you could get called up and quite rightly
44:53
you know to evidence base your cpd portfolio
44:57
and it's got a lot harder over the last few years
45:00
and people dread it and you will see it in the group over the next
45:03
sort of a month or so when people get called and i'm checking my email every
45:07
day but february february the 14th be careful what you wish for because i'm
45:12
not looking forward to that email does anybody know what the annual cost of
45:17
regulation is across all sectors, you know, in health care.
45:22
In 2011, it was £200 million.
45:26
It's half a billion pounds at the moment.
45:29
Across everything. The government, they have not got the resources to continue funding this.
45:36
There was a white paper, which was the 31st of October 2017 to the 23rd of January
45:41
2018, called Promoting Professionalism Reforming Regulation.
45:45
And the government response was issued in July 2019. And it says it's not fit for purpose.
45:51
They've got to be saving money. You know, we're massive national debt.
45:56
We haven't got half a billion pounds to be spending on regulation and changes are coming.
46:00
That's not mean that we don't have to be voluntarily regulated and that we don't
46:04
have to have a good, strong organizational governance within.
46:09
But we don't need to be state regulated.
46:12
I actually find it welcome not to be state regulated.
46:14
So going back to my son, I'm thinking, oh, yeah, definitely go do sports science
46:20
because, well, physio has to meet so many standards, doesn't it?
46:25
And you could be audited every two years so if if
46:28
i had someone i mean from from the sta we do
46:31
audit our members annually we have an annual audit
46:34
in september we have got a an excel form
46:37
now which every member must complete it it has to have learning outcomes it
46:41
has to have reflections you know we check qualifications we're doing what the
46:47
government is suggesting that regulation should look like it's called soft touch
46:51
regulation okay the association should take more more responsibility for policing its own members.
46:59
Unfortunately, the biggest problem,
47:02
Well, the only thing I can do if one of my members is unprofessional,
47:05
doesn't meet my code of conduct and professionalism and ethics,
47:08
is revoke their membership.
47:11
That's all we can do. And then they can go to somebody else if they want to.
47:14
And I have no way of sharing that information because of GDPR.
47:20
So unfortunately, there are bad in every profession. But regulation and love him or hate him,
47:26
what Adam Meekins has gone through with his fitness to
47:30
practice hearing that's terrible it's disgusting my
47:33
blood boils how long it's taken and then when it when it started it finished
47:38
you know because somebody recused themselves i think that's terrible and that's
47:42
what regulation looks like i suppose the problem with sports therapy as well
47:47
as that as a sports therapist you don't need to be affiliated with an association,
47:52
so that you can go years without having to provide any cpd or evidence of doing
47:58
research which It doesn't help our cause.
48:01
Yeah, and I suppose just even having this conversation, we're getting a better
48:04
understanding of what's what.
48:07
Because I suppose there's some
48:09
sports therapists that don't realise what physios have to do for my HCPC.
48:13
And I obviously didn't know anything about your, you know, you've got different
48:17
associations, even though I've worked with sports therapists,
48:21
three of them, for the last four years.
48:24
Right, I've got some questions, people, if that's okay. because like we could
48:28
keep talking about this easily for an hour but I've got some questions which
48:31
I've got sent online as well as some in the room so I will try and get them through.
48:35
First of all, a nice question. Would a physiotherapist recommend a client to
48:38
see a sports therapist and in what type of situation?
48:42
Yes. Yeah. Yes. What type of situation would you say? Oh, yeah,
48:47
you better go see a sports therapist.
48:48
And I think it depends. Well, a sports therapist sees everyone.
48:54
So I'm happy for them to treat everyone.
48:56
I gave an example earlier. I worked part time and I felt the patient needed
49:00
to be seen more regularly.
49:02
Early and at the end of their rehab journey he
49:05
wanted to get back to golf and I felt that was best suited to
49:08
a sports if we get a patient coming in self-pay obviously
49:12
we'll put that patient in with a sports therapist over
49:15
a physio if they're already filled with private medical health
49:18
that's interesting from a business point of view I think
49:21
from a point of view if I
49:23
ran a clinic and it was a sports injury and I had
49:26
a fresh new physiotherapist straight out
49:29
of university university I would put that person with the
49:32
sports therapist because as I said before that sports therapist has
49:35
spent three years doing what the physio although probably very
49:38
good has only done for one year so from experience
49:41
point of view which is the other thing we've not really sort of touched on
49:44
there is a big difference there dependent you know and
49:47
you can throw the title at sort of out of the window can't you really
49:50
that's what I said earlier Gemma actually to Matt was that
49:52
we had a graduate physio coming to our team one year
49:55
post-grad and they were like oh we we need some more senior physios in the team
49:59
and I'm like well we've got sports therapists there with 10 years post-grad
50:03
experience you're senior yeah bravo bravo okay another question another question
50:09
sorry but we're running out of time do physiotherapists do you know if many.
50:14
Physiotherapists see a potential need for sports therapists working within the NHS.
50:19
Yes, I think I do because I'm in this new post and I could see it helping a
50:24
lot of patients in the NHS.
50:27
I have a sports therapist that was at Summit, she won't mind me saying this,
50:29
at Andy Hosgood's clinic.
50:31
And she left that clinic because she got an NHS rehab post in Chorley.
50:36
And they are coming up more and more because, you know, as I think some people
50:42
in the comments have said, NHS physio-wise have gone very hands off for whatever
50:47
reason. I think volume is probably one of those reasons and time.
50:51
And so they're creating, quite rightly, these rehab roles, which are available
50:56
to different factors and different people with those skill sets now.
51:00
So I haven't seen many of them, but certainly in Lancashire,
51:03
those posts are coming. We have it in Devon. They're called MSK Practitioners.
51:07
We have them in Devon. Great posts.
51:10
Absolutely. A lot of the MSK outpatients is handled by companies like Connect
51:16
Health, who are equally employing physios and graduate sports therapists.
51:20
But prior to 2014, in the seven years prior to 2014, a report said that 71%
51:26
of physio jobs in the NHS had been lost.
51:29
A lot of those were filled by soft tissue therapists acting as physio assistants
51:34
or soft tissue therapists or graduate sports therapists acting as physio assistants
51:40
on, you know, considerably less wages.
51:43
So saving the money in the NHS, saving the NHS money.
51:47
But that's going to come around the other way because they're going to be very rehab based hands off.
51:51
So you're then going to have sports therapists in a very rehab based role in the NHS.
51:56
And it's all going to go full circle. Yeah, I agree. I entirely agree with that.
52:00
Other thing, just a moment, it is really, really important for those of you
52:03
that runs clinic and something has to be done.
52:07
For us, because we're not state registered, we pay VAT.
52:13
So retreat at my clinic has to
52:16
be vat registered if a physiotherapist
52:20
will not have to be and this is the only time where
52:22
i think in fact gary maybe tomorrow just give
52:25
a call to hmrc and how you know
52:29
that is something that needs to change doesn't matter register
52:32
or not register he has to change because we're
52:35
part of healthcare well okay there's a few
52:37
people asking here as well so i'm just seeing it repeat it and generally
52:41
it's like people aren't aware are physios actually allowed
52:44
to provide sports massage i know you they do about an hour or
52:47
something in as part of over the three years but can they are
52:49
they allowed to offer sports massage i think this came up
52:52
in our chat didn't it in the group the other day and i think it's the same the
52:55
same is it mark we can because i think as
52:58
gary said there's some of the comes under a pillar don't get
53:01
me started on the the pillars i don't agree with them but it comes
53:04
under the pillar and what we what we can do is
53:07
provide treatment based approach based
53:10
on clinical reasoning within our scope of practice
53:13
so what you will probably find in a
53:16
realistic terms is that if you are not very good at sports
53:19
massage or soft tissue or you don't like it they will
53:22
treat in a different way this is what i've found over the years if
53:25
you do like it because it's a it's a preferred technique that
53:28
i like for part of my treatment you will do a lot of
53:31
it so therefore you probably will do a bit more training
53:34
so i definitely think you can but i
53:38
think there's arguments to say i think some people have commented on.
53:41
Here saying physios don't do sports massage i don't agree with that.
53:43
I think a lot of people do i call it soft.
53:46
Tissue treatment because i'm trying to educate patients.
53:49
That it's not just massage massage is very beneficial
53:52
but this is a little bit more than what you
53:55
would do to try and to make the differentiation of where you
53:58
may just go for a nice massage if you had a no clinical.
54:01
Issue like a beauty salon any type of practitioner can do any type of treatment
54:07
providing their competent inverted commas competence is understanding how to
54:11
do the treatment understanding the benefits and risks and when and contraindications
54:17
once you've done that you've shown that yeah but that's.
54:22
That is if they've got a practitioner level qualification
54:25
that covers them and for insurance underwriting point of
54:28
view physiotherapy of the title encompasses one
54:32
of the pillars which is massage therefore they can do it right
54:34
you know it i had a meeting with balins matt which we can talk about another
54:39
time but you know i have been checking upon this that's all i do you know i'm
54:44
sad i don't work in trinity i haven't got time i'm too busy checking policies
54:48
and procedures for for the benefit of the STA members so that they don't get into trouble.
54:52
I actually Facebook stalk most of my members to make sure they're not,
54:56
you know, saying they're a physio or physio. There you go. Yeah.
55:01
Right. We are drawing in. I just want to share some of the appreciations.
55:06
So Gemma Gwynnett says, this is nice to see you.
55:08
You're the first physios that have spoken about hands-on massage,
55:11
soft tissue work and a positive life.
55:12
It's great to see us not being knocked down or sneered at. That makes me sad, Matt.
55:15
And I know, and that's a lovely comment from Gemma. And that's what I really want to try and change.
55:20
And what you do at the STA and BASRA and the collaboration that we've had over
55:26
the past few years, we've got to break that down because that is not OK.
55:31
And thanks for saying that, Gemma, but it's just a shame you seem to be around
55:34
people that have had that experience.
55:36
It just makes me a bit sad. I think the problem is, in the NHS,
55:40
we weren't allowed to massage in musculoskeletal outpatients because there was no evidence.
55:45
I mean, I'm going back years now when I was a junior physio.
55:49
Yeah, and that's exactly what I was going to say, Caroline, is that,
55:53
you know, in my opinion, you know, I don't know many bad physios.
55:57
I know that they're constrained by the system, especially within the NHS of
56:01
limited appointment times, limited access, having to get a consultation. Infection control.
56:08
Infection yeah all of those things
56:11
so you know i don't think i don't think physios
56:14
in the nhs you know and i get the message you get the
56:17
gist of what people are saying that they've only experienced bad things
56:20
i don't think that's the case i just think that constraints of
56:23
the system are creating in effect
56:26
a massive marketplace for us soft tissue therapists and
56:29
sports therapists yeah for sure like i mean years
56:31
ago we used to do hydrotherapy and there's cost implications
56:34
for that infection it's just yeah the constraints in the nhs then unfortunately
56:40
gives physios a bad name sometimes yeah okay look right then so we've covered
56:47
quite a lot to tell you the truth in the now there's so much what we could talk
56:50
about but i'm hoping well actually while i talk i want you to think about,
56:55
what you hope people can do or give some words of wisdom to people to try and help,
56:59
get rid of this idea of physios against sports
57:02
therapists and sports therapists trying to be physios because they're
57:05
too embarrassed to call themselves a sports therapist but i think
57:08
at the end of the day i mean i always and you can think while i'm just blabbing on
57:11
now i'm giving you people a chance to think of the final words of wisdom but
57:14
i always feel very lucky from myself that i was pretty much born into a multi-disciplinary
57:20
clinic because as a young young sports therapist or starting off as a sports
57:24
massage therapist and still working my way out i was always throwing people
57:28
into the physio or the podiatrist and i remember.
57:31
You know pretty much 80 of
57:34
my patients i was like i don't know what's going on there go and see our physio and
57:37
you know what 79 came back saying matt just keep doing what you're doing it's
57:40
fine stop worrying but when that one percent did happen it was happy days because
57:45
i never lost that i still want to i'm still not quite sure what's going on here
57:49
and i think there's a danger that But if sports therapists do get too confident
57:55
and some are not confident enough,
57:57
you are always going to need that group, whether it's in the same clinic or
58:02
whether it's on the end of a phone.
58:03
You're going to need the physiotherapist because they have studied so much more
58:07
because they are going to be much more, I think so anyway, experts in other
58:11
systems, not in red flags.
58:13
You can do a lot of CPD yourself and a lot of your CPD as a non-allied health
58:18
professional should be recognizing things.
58:20
Things you're not allowed to treat but you've got to recognize you know but
58:22
i think unless you've got that network of people
58:25
at the end of the phone unless you're confident enough to to pass
58:28
that person on when it doesn't quite add up then you
58:32
are running risk to the patient in your own career and stuff and
58:35
don't be scared of the physio at the end because just the same as the guy in
58:38
my clinic would always give them back to me say matt pat on the shoulder you're
58:41
doing fine mate keep going along that's what we all need to hear sometimes so
58:44
it's all what i'm trying to say It all boils down to communication and just
58:48
being part of a network and not being scared of other professionals. Over to somebody else.
58:53
I think that's what at the STA I've tried to do over the years.
58:58
You know, my first thought was nobody should feel isolated in the industry.
59:03
And so we've become the network for them, you know, with the one-to-one chats,
59:07
the coffee evening stuff.
59:09
But, you know, let's all work together. Let's be nice to people. Yes.
59:14
Yeah. I think I want sports therapists, graduate sports therapists,
59:19
massage therapists to be, and physios that don't
59:22
because there's physios who don't think they're good enough you know I was one of
59:25
them many years ago I've got more confident now but I still you
59:28
know still call you know people up going what on
59:31
earth is going on you know we've had a chat in our little group today what's
59:34
this I don't know what's going on and I think it's being brave it's being proud
59:38
about what you do whatever you're trained in you know putting the patient first
59:43
but being confident and And trying not to see this title as a hierarchy and
59:49
seeing it as a collaborative way to talk and to treat patients.
59:53
And I want people, that would be my advice to younger sports therapists or all
59:57
physios, just be proud about what you're doing.
1:00:00
Yeah, a hierarchy is not bad sometimes, you know, there is always somebody differently
1:00:04
trained or trained at a higher level because they're a specialist. It's absolutely fine.
1:00:10
You know, let's be confident on what we do. and the patient it's as long as
1:00:15
the patient gets on with the person you know that and they will engage better
1:00:19
so you know not one person's going to be able to fix everyone yeah sign or skill up.
1:00:27
Yeah signpost or skill up you know and you you know like gary you know like
1:00:31
you said gary you've done you've done a great job and continue to and that's
1:00:35
right and you know if you are finding you're a bit lost you need to hook on
1:00:39
to these organizations you need to use these organizations organisations to get better help,
1:00:43
support, and they will help you with the collaboration.
1:00:46
And there's loads of forums now, you know, you have your own,
1:00:48
I will plug our own, you know, MSK Hub, there's people on there.
1:00:52
And I do love it for this, there's all sorts of different questions on there.
1:00:55
You know, a common thread that we've had over the past few years is that people
1:00:58
that would have been scared to say things for fear of being shut down on social
1:01:03
media or Twitter or X or whatever it's called now feel like they can say it
1:01:08
now. And we need to push these forums a bit more.
1:01:10
I was I was definitely one of those people. I would never have been on something
1:01:14
like this without you or you guys.
1:01:16
It's good. That's good.
1:01:19
I mean, I'm going to put it up here on the screen because, yeah,
1:01:21
it's worth having a shout out for the MSK Hub.
1:01:25
And all that because i mean let me share this
1:01:28
on the screen put it on there just about kind of
1:01:31
sums it all up so the msk hub supported by physio matters and mehab
1:01:34
it says in on the actual facebook group a
1:01:37
collaborative open network of professional therapists and clinicians born
1:01:40
out of the coronavirus pandemic pandemic for
1:01:43
all physio osteo chiro medic sports therapy smt
1:01:46
in various settings who are looking for guidance advice reassurance and
1:01:50
ongoing support and i think therapy related to
1:01:52
their work it's beautiful i mean tell you what this this is
1:01:55
pre-chat gpt this was going back some so it's
1:01:58
just like coming from the heart and i'll promise that that has
1:02:01
not changed so that was set up 2020 so those
1:02:04
words have only changed ever so slightly in 2020 so
1:02:07
you know that's great it's good words it will stay
1:02:10
there and that's very good words can we give a shout out
1:02:13
to my plant oh okay now sorry listeners we've won about 3 000 downloads at the
1:02:20
moment so if if anyone there has got any horticultural experience yeah anna
1:02:23
maria matt's the area of the st school a question about a plant good time ria
1:02:29
late because we were talking about animal this is it the stage is yours go on.
1:02:35
Just wondering if anybody has got any advice when my plant it's got anna maria
1:02:40
it's a it's all about building that therapeutic alliance and not And also knowing
1:02:46
what a podcast is, because they can't see you clutching your little thing.
1:02:50
On that note, thank you very much, everyone who joined us in the live lounge.
1:02:53
I really appreciate it. It was lovely to see so many of you enthused and adding
1:02:57
things. I couldn't get through all the comments, but it was great.
1:02:59
It was lovely to see up in the 50s again. This is like COVID time.
1:03:02
So thank you very much for joining us. If you have joined us this evening and
1:03:05
you're thinking, oh, I could get into this. It's not bad. And I have my time.
1:03:09
Mixing networking listening to our guests then do feel
1:03:12
free to join us you haven't got to be any as long as you're a sports therapist then
1:03:15
then you can come along obviously no i'm joking you can be from
1:03:18
any discipline and we welcome that you know
1:03:21
because as you're hearing tonight it's all about the patient
1:03:24
today isn't it if you look after your patients and guess what your business
1:03:26
is going to do great and you're going to make a massive network of people
1:03:29
so it's a great business model so yeah if you listen to.
1:03:32
Podcast and you fancy joining us tuesdays eight o'clock
1:03:35
on either the sports therapy association youtube channel
1:03:38
if you prefer joining via youtube or come along to the facebook page where
1:03:42
we also stream next week is going to be
1:03:45
the first tuesday of the month so what we tend to do is
1:03:48
have a ask us anything episode so i basically collate
1:03:51
questions and throughout the week you can email questions to
1:03:54
me at matt at the sta.co.uk or you can leave them
1:03:57
in any of the forums i have a trawl through other forms as
1:04:00
well and and get questions about our industry anything to
1:04:03
do with the industry to do healthcare so feel free
1:04:06
to send me those questions that's where we'll be next week also
1:04:09
just a final shout out if you've enjoyed tonight then head
1:04:13
along to the msk hub just look up look
1:04:16
it up on facebook and you will find it so
1:04:19
many members there and like like we've said and jemma said some great
1:04:22
dialogues and conversations going on between different health
1:04:25
professionals which is great because so many perspectives and things and it's
1:04:28
really well moderated you won't be bullied and it's it's people you know things
1:04:32
are taken down things don't even get through the door if they're kind of sensationalist
1:04:36
or just looking for an argument so it's a it's a really nice safe place to go
1:04:39
along to do check it out right and also most importantly thank you to my guests thank you to my three.
1:04:45
Physios thank you very much and thank you
1:04:48
to my three sports therapists and also
1:04:52
the dogs who who have joined us and the plants in the background and the little
1:04:55
yellow rodent teddy bear which is with colins thanks people really appreciate
1:05:00
you giving up your time um and yeah thank you for the discussion it was really
1:05:04
good take everybody and we'll see you soon on the sports association podcast take care.
1:05:11
Music.