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21st century approach to healthcare
• WITH reference to your article (Carry on, Doctor? John Gulliver, May 29), change is rarely welcome.
In a service subject to as much change as the NHS has been over the past two decades or so, it is easy to be dismissive of anything different.
Initiatives such as a musculo-skeletal evaluation team reflect a more sophisticated approach to addressing patients’ needs (in the same way that surgeons now have more options than either to sew up or cut off!).
There is, of course, an ever present pressure to ensure the most cost effective use of resources – the NHS is a service subject to potentially infinite demands but with finite resources.
This, along with increasing knowledge and new technology, contributes to the development of new techniques and medicines.
We now know that a delay in addressing some conditions can cause long-term and complex problems while with other conditions this is not the case.
Physiotherapists are “first contact” practitioners, able to assess, diagnose, treat, enable self-management or refer on as appropriate, without need for initial medical referral.
Physiotherapy musculo-skeletal evaluation teams around the country have made significant reductions to the waiting times for a range of consultant-led services and improved the patient experience of healthcare.
They do this with the full support of their consultant colleagues.
GARY ROBJENT
Head of Public Affairs and Policy Development
The Chartered Society of Physiotherapy
Bedford Row, WC1
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