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Physiotherapy encompasses a range of interventions, services and advice aimed at restoring, maintaining and improving people's function and movement and thereby maximising the quality of their lives.
Physiotherapy practitioners use a flexible and holistic approach towards meeting the needs of their clients. They work in partnership with clients, respecting their autonomy.
Members of the physiotherapy workforce undertake many different roles, in a range of sectors and settings across the UK, and often in multi-disciplinary and integrated teams.
They do this throughout all stages of patient care - undertaking assessment, diagnosis, treatment, discharge, referral, rehabilitation and management of long-term conditions. For other clients they play a key role in promoting and maintaining health, preventing disease and enabling people to stay in and return to work.
In addition to these clinically-focused roles, members of the physiotherapy workforce are also educators, researchers, managers and leaders. Some physiotherapists have extended their individual scope of practice to undertake specialist and advanced roles.