Guest blog by Lucy Booth, Occupational Health Physiotherapist
I am a physiotherapist with 20 years of musculoskeletal (MSK) experience and have been working in occupational health (Working Well in Gloucestershire) for the past 15 years on and off. I have been the only physio working in an NHS occupational health (OH) department surrounded by great nurses, technicians and doctors, undertaking management referrals and completing DSE assessments and functional workplace visits. This has sometimes been a bit of a lonely journey, but in recent years I have worked alongside some great treating physios, who have been working in our staff service.
In the last five years or so I have had increased awareness that I am working reactively with the staff we support (firefighting) and not looking at the bigger picture of how to support staff in not coming to me in the first place (fire training!). I have a very supportive business manager who came to me with some funding that we could use to tackle health and wellbeing within the trust. Together we decided that working to improve our staffs' MSK health was a must, as we have high rates of absence in the NHS compared to private sector. There are also areas of high MSK need (specific departments) that we could consider to improve work tasks/staff behaviour.
And so, the proactive physiotherapy service plan was born. Recruitment was slow, but we now have two members of staff on board (well, almost…) who are planning and delivering this service. During the recruitment process we asked candidates to consider what the MSK service would look like and what strategies we could use. My brain went into blue sky thinking and I have a list as long as my arm of things I would love to achieve with this new service… but, reality bites and we have to consider what will add most value and what is manageable in the 12 month window.
So here are our headlines that we want to achieve in the coming 12 months:
- Visiting staff in their workplaces and supporting them with how to set up their computers well to improve comfort and also to encourage movement breaks, stretches and general activity out of work.
- Targeting areas/departments where we receive high levels of management referrals to assess the staff concerns (we can’t provide more staff, but can look at how they undertake tasks). Then provide intervention in the form of activity guidance, treatment where required and adjustment of workplace tasks where possible.
- Supporting our mental health workforce to ensure they are ‘fit for the job’ in terms of being able to undertake restraints with mental health patients safely within the hospitals.
- Lastly if we have a chance one of the new team is a whizz with digital stuff (my ability is woeful!) and she is keen to review the health literacy that we provide our staff with, providing better signposting and positive health messages around MSK health.
If we manage to achieve all of this in 12 months, we should give ourselves a pat on the back and then tackle the task of making these posts substantive and starting to expand the service to include all the other things we want to implement. If you are reading this and screaming at the screen because you think we should be doing something completely different then please do feel free to contact me. We will let you know how we are getting on in a few months...
Lucy Booth is Lead Occupational Health Physiotherapist at Working Well, Gloucestershire Health and Care NHS Foundation Trust.