PhysioUpdate 19th January 2021

Susan Pattison has a self-proclaimed ‘passion’ for working with people with brain injuries. Indeed, it was the glaring lack of community-based rehab options for people in north west England that inspired her to open her first clinic in 1998.

Since then, her reach has extended beyond the original base in Bury, Greater Manchester, and her business has expanded to include having community-based therapists in Warrington, Cheshire, and Barnsley, south Yorkshire.

The Health and Care Professions Council (HCPC) has joined other health and social care regulators in a bid to allay ‘anxieties’ associated with practising during the ‘highly challenging circumstances’ created by the Covid-19 pandemic.  

In a joint statement released on 13 January, the HCPC acknowledges that physiotherapists and their colleagues may have to ‘depart from established procedures’ in order to provide care.

Being infected with Covid-19 appears to offer people protection from further infection for several months, a Public Health England (PHE) study suggests.

The finding comes with an important caveat, however: those with immunity could still carry the virus in their noses and throats, meaning they could potentially pass it on.

The scale of the problems facing physiotherapists around the world last year as they tried to respond to Covid-19 in a safe fashion has been highlighted in a report by World Physiotherapy.

Releasing the results of a survey today, World Physiotherapy said almost two thirds of respondents (63 per cent) reported challenges in accessing personal protective equipment – particularly from March to June 2020.