Developing physiotherapy

New member resources

The Charting the Future project, which ran until 2010, produced three new, coordinated and integrated resources to provide leadership and support to member practice, education and conduct. The three resources are:

• Learning and Development (L&D) Principles for physiotherapy education at qualifying level
• a Physiotherapy framework for putting physiotherapy knowledge and skills into practice
• a Code of Professional Values and Behaviour

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The resources are designed to provide leadership and support to members' practice, education and conduct, recognising these sit in a context of increasing challenge and changing opportunities.

Physiotherapy's future

The CSP has a strong role to play in supporting members to:

• engage with increasingly diverse opportunities to develop physiotherapy and their physiotherapy roles
• address current challenges for the profession and members in increasingly demanding environments.

The new resources can help achieve both in the following ways:

• the framework is designed to help members articulate what they offer to service development and delivery across sectors, settings, roles and levels of practice and support members' continuing professional development
• The L&D Principles, used in tandem with the Framework, show how education needs to develop to equip the physiotherapy workforce to meet changing needs and take on new roles
• The Code asserts how members work with the individuals and groups they serve, particularly in terms of a person-centred approach, and is designed to provide a supportive tool for members' professionalism.

The resources have the same starting-point as the CSP's 2010 vision of the future of physiotherapy (see foot of page to download).

At the same time, the Standards of Physiotherapy Practice are being revised this year to assist members in meeting the expectations of the new Code.

Both the vision and the resources are intended to be relevant and useful to members across the UK, as well as in all sectors, settings, roles and career stages. This means they are necessarily generic in how they describe some features. The overriding intention is to be inclusive.

Priority areas

Work on the resources and the vision has affirmed priorities for how UK physiotherapy develops. These can be summarised as follows:

• demonstrating physiotherapy's value in terms of its clinical and cost effectiveness and quality and productivity
• developing physiotherapy's scope of practice in line with changing population group/patient needs, taking account of developments in the evidence base
• developing advanced practice, including physiotherapy's capacity to take on roles/activities traditionally done by doctors, and linked strongly to demonstrating value
• asserting physiotherapy's distinctive role. For example, in promoting health and well-being, supporting behaviour change, enabling individuals to manage long-term, complex conditions, and leading 'fit for work' initiatives
• demonstrating physiotherapy's engagement with health care reform and leading service redesign and innovation
• recognising the increasing value of support workers in delivering accessible, timely services
• promoting the physiotherapy workforce's capacity to take on a broader range of roles (and supporting members in doing this). This includes in terms of clinical roles not defined by profession and non-clinical roles (eg focused on leadership, policy, multi-professional/multi-agency management, planning/commissioning services), recognising the value the profession can bring to these and the roles' value for increasing the profession's influence.

Using the resources and getting involved

The resources are being promoted and disseminated, with members being encouraged to use the resources and provide feedback. In particular:

• The L&D Principles, together with examples of innovative practice drawn from current education, have been sent to providers of qualifying programmes in physiotherapy, with an update on how the CSP's quality assurance and enhancement processes have been aligned with them. They now therefore shape how the CSP approaches its approval/reapproval of qualifying programmes
• The Framework has been developed as an online resource. This will mean its domains and levels are searchable and accessible according to member need, and will be illustrated by an increasing number of practice examples (contribute your own material).

Member feedback on developments for the new code, revised standards and framework is still taking place. Please use the links at the start of this page to find out further details.