The CSP has told MPs that physiotherapy must be at the heart of plans to boost physical activity and healthy ageing, in evidence submitted to the health and social care select committee’s healthy ageing inquiry.
The inquiry is examining how physical activity can prevent and reduce ill health in later life, and how increasing activity levels could help close the gap in healthy life expectancy between the most and least deprived communities.
Our submission to this inquiry highlights the central role physiotherapists and physiotherapy support workers play preventing illness, supporting recovery, and reducing demand on overstretched NHS services.
It calls for urgent investment in physiotherapy services and workforce expansion, highlighting how improved access could help close the healthy life expectancy gap between richer and poorer communities.
Our key recommendations to MPs:
- Make physiotherapy advice available early for people with long-term conditions, through primary care and neighbourhood teams.
- Expand community rehabilitation by using record physiotherapy graduate numbers and growing rehabilitation support worker roles.
- Reform primary care funding and develop integrated neighbourhood health services to address gaps between GP surgeries and community health teams.
- Full rollout of 5,000 first contact physiotherapists in primary care to provide rapid access to expert assessment and self-management advice.
- Investment in fracture prevention services, such as fracture liaison services, to reduce avoidable hospitalisations and maintain independence.
- Cross-sector partnerships between NHS, social care, local government, voluntary organisations and leisure and well-being sectors to integrate physical activity into care pathways.
We also urged MPs to tackle the postcode lottery in rehab services, integrate physiotherapy into social care and leisure settings, and roll out proven innovations such as MSK hubs, and Prehab4Cancer.
Rachel Newton, head of policy at the CSP, said:
We have the workforce, the evidence and the innovation to make a huge difference to older people’s health and independence. What’s needed now is investment and the political will to make it happen.
The committee will hear oral evidence in the coming months before publishing its findings. The CSP will continue to engage MPs and decision-makers to ensure physiotherapy is recognised as central to healthy ageing policy.
Number of subscribers: 1
Log in to comment and read comments that have been added