At Bridge Road Surgery, we have Sarah and Nisheen as our Musculoskeletal First Contact Practitioners (FCPs). FCPs are physiotherapists by background who have extensive post-graduate experience in managing patients with musculoskeletal conditions, such as osteoarthritis, back pain, and problems affecting the joints, muscles and soft tissues.
FCPs use their knowledge and expertise of how the body works and how it is affected by conditions of the musculoskeletal system to implement management plans specific to each patient. This will include an accurate assessment of the problem, diagnosis, and appropriate advice, education and exercise to either:
- Enable patients to self-manage their condition from this one-off assessment with an experienced practitioner.
- Request further investigation or management (imaging, bloods tests or onward specialist referral) where clinically appropriate and needed.
There are key differences in First Contact MSK versus traditional physiotherapy. This service is very much about placing an experienced MSK physiotherapists with advanced knowledge and skills within the practice. This allows us to efficiently assess and diagnose MSK complaints to help patients manage their condition/s at the first point of patient contact instead of needing to see another practitioner (GP for example) to then be referred to the appropriate service, which is not efficient.
Benefits to patients are:
- Quick access to a MSK expert for assessment, diagnosis, treatment, and advice.
- Prevention of short-term problems becoming long-term conditions.
- Improved patient experience by seeing a MSK specialist.
- A shorter pathway, so patients have fewer appointments to attend.
- Opportunities to gain lifestyle/physical activity advice.
How to book an appointment:
You can pre-book an appointment with the FCP by calling Reception on 01502 565936 – this can either be a telephone consultation or a face-to-face consultation.
Alternatively, please use this link to send a message to us to enquire.