This section provides an overview of the development of the physiotherapy profession with a particular focus on the development of autonomy and regulation of physiotherapy. An overview of the early days of the profession can be found in the book In Good Hands (Barclay 1994). Further references may be found in The History of the Physiotherapy Profession (CSP 2010), which provides an insight into the development of autonomy and, subsequently, scope of practice. The Chartered Society of Physiotherapy (CSP) was founded in the UK in 1894, under the name of the Society of Trained Masseuses. It was established as a means of regulating the practice of ‘medical rubbers’. For many years, doctors governed the profession and one of the first rules of professional conduct stated ‘no massage to be undertaken except under medical direction’ (Barclay 1994). The Society used the opportunities created by developments in medicine and technology, and the demands of war to extend its manual therapy skills, and to add exercise and movement, electrophysical modalities and other physical approaches to its repertoire during the early years of the twentieth century (Barclay 1994). This scope of practice, which was legitimised by a Royal Charter in 1920, remains the hallmark of contemporary physiotherapy practice (CSP 2008). Two years after gaining professional autonomy in 1977, and supported by the shifts in physiotherapy education towards polytechnics, the CSP opened the debate on all-graduate entry – an identity traditionally associated with professions (Tidswell 1991). All-graduate entry was finally achieved in 1994 following considerable debate about how degree status would benefit patients and ensure the ongoing development of physiotherapy practice (Tidswell 2009). Towards the end of the 1990s, concerns about the quality of patient care, professional power and the need to contain the spiralling medico-legal costs, led to an overhaul of the regulatory frameworks in healthcare. Clinical governance was introduced as a system of quality control in 1997. Discussions about the need to review the regulation of professional groups like physiotherapy who worked alongside medicine, led to a change in terminology in 1999, from ‘professions supplementary to medicine’ to ‘health professions’. Legal protection of the title ‘physiotherapy’ and ‘physical therapist’ followed under the Health Professions Order (DH 2002, HCPC 2001) – an outcome that the Chartered Society had been seeking for over 30 years. Alongside protection of title came a whole raft of changes designed to strengthen and modernise the regulation of healthcare professions, including physiotherapy. The CPSM was replaced by the Health Professions Council (HPC) in 2002 and subsequently renamed the Health and Care Professions Council (HCPC) in 2012. One of the most significant changes for registrants was the introduction of a process to audit their ongoing competence to practise and requiring engagement with continuing professional development (CPD) (HCPC 2011). Once the physiotherapy profession had acquired all-graduate entry, physiotherapy continued its pursuit of professional traits by shifting the debate from examination of skills and techniques to attempting to identify the underpinning knowledge that makes it unique (Roberts 2001). This change is reflected in both the Physiotherapy Framework (CSP 2011c) and the Learning and Development Principles (CSP 2011b). In 2007 the CSP Council agreed a fresh interpretation of the Royal Charter: There are various theories on how to describe a profession in the literature. One way reflects work undertaken during the 1950s and 1960s which explored professions by identifying common traits and considering the qualities that distinguished a profession from an occupational group (Koehn 1994; Richardson 1999). A profession is described as: • a professional organisation which has developed and maintains a code of conduct or standards of practice based on acknowledged ethical principles; • able to discipline members who contravene the code/standards; • having exclusive knowledge and a technical base which is protected by the law; • autonomous in its members’ work; • having members undertaking professional activity which requires them to have responsibilities or duties to those who need assistance; • having responsibilities which are not incumbent on others. Professionalism defines what is expected of a professional. Becoming an autonomous professional requires an acceptance, often implied, of certain responsibilities, in return for certain privileges. These responsibilities require behaviours and attitudes of individuals in whom professional trust is placed. Professionalism is widely understood to require these attributes (Medical Professionalism Project 2005 (cited in CSP 2005b); CSP 2011a): • a motivation to deliver a service to others; • adherence to a moral and ethical code of practice; • maintaining an awareness of limitations and scope of practice, and a commitment to empowering others (rather than seeking to protect professional knowledge and skills). • use their skills in the context of the client’s best interests and ‘doing good’; • are willing to act for as long as it takes to achieve what was set out to be achieved or for a decision to be made that nothing more can be done to help the client; • have a highly developed internalised sense of responsibility to monitor personal behaviour, for example by not taking advantage of vulnerable patients; • demand from the client the responsibility to provide, for example, sufficient information to allow decisions to be made (compliance); • are allowed to exercise discretion (judgement) to do the best for the client, within limits. 1.1.1. Use their professional autonomy to benefit others; 1.1.2. Understand and accept the significant responsibility that professional autonomy brings; 1.1.3. Accept and uphold their duty of care to individuals; 1.1.4. Are responsible and accountable for their decisions and actions, including the delegation of activity to others; 1.1.5. Justify and account for their decisions and actions; 1.1.6. Ensure that their activity is covered by appropriate insurance. This concept of scope recognises that: • the profession’s scope of practice is evolving, and needs to evolve, in line with changing patient and population needs, developments in the evidence base, changes in service design and delivery, and changing opportunities for professional and career development; • practice includes a diversity of activity that is shaped by the collective, shared principles and thinking of the profession; • individuals have a responsibility to limit their activity to those areas in which they have established and maintained their competence; • individuals need to evaluate and reflect on their personal activity, taking account of the profession’s evolving evidence base, and respond appropriately to their learning and development needs; • individual competence changes and shifts as they progress through their physiotherapy career; • individuals have a responsibility to be aware of how their practice may challenge the boundaries of the scope of practice of UK physiotherapy and to take appropriate action (CSP 2011d). Every physiotherapist has her or his own personal ‘scope of practice’ (CSP 2011c) – that is, a range (or scope) of professional knowledge and skills that can be applied competently within specific practice settings or populations. When a person is newly qualified, this scope will be based on the content of the pre-qualifying course, but will also be informed by the individual’s experience in clinical placements and the amount of teaching and reflective learning that has been possible as part of those placements. As a career progresses, and as a result of CPD and personal interest, these skills and knowledge evolve with a physiotherapist developing some skills, adding new skills and possibly losing competence in some areas. It is the responsibility of the professional to understand his or her personal scope of practice as it changes and evolves throughout their career. To practise in areas in which a physiotherapist is not competent puts patients at risk and is a breach of the HCPC standards (HCPC 2007, HCPC 2008). A profession has legitimate expectations of its members to conduct themselves in a way that does not bring the profession into disrepute, but rather enhances public perception of it. Physiotherapists have a duty to inform themselves of what is expected of them. Indeed, the expectation of the CSP is that members adhere to the Code (CSP 2011a), and this commitment forms part of the contract of membership of the CSP. Similarly, the CSP expects that all members should meet the Quality Assurance Standards for Physiotherapy Service Delivery (CSP 2012). Where they do not, programmes of professional development should be put in place to facilitate full compliance, as part of the individual’s professional responsibility. The HCPC sets standards of professional training, performance and conduct for the 17 regulated professions and maintains a public register of health professionals that meet its standards. The HCPC publishes generic standards for HCPC registrants, standards of conduct, performance and ethics (HCPC 2008) and profession-specific standards (Standards of Proficiency Physiotherapists, HCPC 2007), which members are required to and agree to meet. Registrants are required to keep up to date with the processes and requirements decreed by the HCPC. The HCPC only regulates the practice relating to humans and does not include regulation of physiotherapists practising on animals. In 2006, the HCPC put in place a system requiring re-registration at intervals of two years (HCPC 2011). Re-registration was introduced partly in response to a lessening of public confidence in the NHS following, for example, the report into children’s heart surgery in Bristol (Bristol Royal Infirmary Inquiry 2001). Equally disturbing were the revelations about the murders of so many patients by Harold Shipman, a man who had previously been a trusted general practitioner (GP), where health systems failed to detect an unusually high number of deaths (DH 2004). The HCPC takes action when complaints are received and if registered health professionals, including physiotherapists, do not meet these standards (HCPC 2005). The process of registration and the accessible public register provide assurance to the public that a physiotherapist is legally allowed to practise. Disciplinary processes are in place to ultimately remove an individual from the register (HCPC 2005) where necessary. As the guardian of the profession’s body of knowledge and skills in the UK, the CSP aims to: • uphold the credibility, values and high standards of the UK physiotherapy profession; • ensure new areas of physiotherapy practice draw on the profession’s distinctive body of knowledge and skills, and uphold a physiotherapist’s accountability for their decision-making and actions; • enhance the profession’s contribution across the UK health and well-being economy; • optimise the profession’s ongoing development; • ensure the profession’s movement into a new area of practice is in the interests of the population and patient groups that it serves (or can potentially serve), while being sensitive to the roles and activities of other professions and occupational groups; • ensure that the profession’s decision to recognise a particular area of practice can be explained and justified in terms of that area’s safety, effectiveness and efficacy; • maintain a record of how the UK physiotherapy profession practice has evolved (CSP 2008).
The responsibilities of being a physiotherapist
History of the physiotherapy profession
Responsibilities of being A professional
Characteristics of a profession
Making a commitment to assist those in need
Scope of practice
Responsibility to colleagues and the profession
Belonging to A profession
Regulation: The Health and Care Professions Council (HCPC)
Professional membership: the Chartered Society of Physiotherapy (CSP)
You may also need
The responsibilities of being a physiotherapist
WordPress theme by UFO themes