Coronavirus: We are open again!

After re-opening in July we are operating slightly differently to before in order to protect the health and well-being of both our patients and staff.  We are following the guidance from the Government, Public Health England and the Chartered Society of Physiotherapists and are confident that our new procedures will make the Clinic a safe and positive experience for everyone.

Making an appointment will be a bit different

Please call the Clinic on 01229 827717  to make an appointment.  If we are not able to answer your call immediately please leave a message and we will get back to you as soon as possible.

When you call the receptionist will go through a screening checklist covering the problem you need help with and issues relating to the coronavirus.  This will tell us if you are in a high risk group and whether we can offer you an appointment. In some cases our physios will discuss with you whether the benefits of an appointment outweigh the risks.

Face-to-Face Appointments: Essential Information

This is a brief summary of how face-to-face appointments will be different during the coronavirus pandemic.  More detailed information is available here

• Don’t arrive early for your appointment. If you do wait outside
• The front door will be locked. When you arrive ring the door bell and wait for the receptionist or physio to open the door
• Come alone if you can. We need to know the name and a contact telephone number of anyone coming with you who will enter the Clinic as we have to screen them for coronavirus as well
• On entry use the hand sanitiser provided
• Observe 1m social distancing in the Clinic at all times
• Your physio will be wearing a face visor, surgical mask, PVC apron and gloves
• Bring your own mask or scarf, or we can supply a disposable surgical mask for £1
• We are disinfecting treatment rooms and other public areas between every patient
• Please do not use the toilet facilities if at all possible
• Payment is by card only. To cover the additional costs due to the coronavirus an initial assessment now costs £45 and treatment sessions £40

Video Appointments: Essential Information

This is a brief summary of how video appointments will work for people familiar with the technology. If you have not used video conferencing before more detailed information is available here.

• the appointment will be with Pinar Aydemir
• you need a Skype, Zoom or WhatsApp account and you will need to give us your user name, e-mail address and a contact phone number when you make the appointment
• you need somewhere private for the session
• we will send you our Video Consent Form and Privacy Policy and Pinar will confirm with you at the start of the session that you accept the conditions.  We do not record video appointments
• you need to log-on five minutes before the appointment and wait for the physio to invite you to the conversation
• we will send instructions for exercises after the session
• the cost is £30 for an Initial Assessment lasting 30 minutes and £20 for a Treatment Session lasting 20 minutes. You can pay by card over the phone beforehand or give your card details at the beginning of the session

Physicians like Hippocrates, and later Galenus, are believed to have been the first practitioners of physiotherapy, advocating massage, manual therapy techniques and hydrotherapy to treat people in 460 B.C.  After the development of orthopedics in the eighteenth century, machines like the Gymnasticon were developed to treat gout and similar diseases by the systematic exercise of the joints, similar to later developments in physiotherapy.

The earliest documented origins of actual physiotherapy as a professional group date back to Per Henrik Ling “Father of Swedish Gymnastics” who founded the Royal Central Institute of Gymnastics (RCIG) in 1813 for massage, manipulation, and exercise. In 1887, physiotherapists were given official registration by Sweden’s National Board of Health and Welfare. Other countries soon followed and in 1894 four nurses in Great Britain formed the Chartered Society of Physiotherapy.

Physiotherapy / Physical Therapy. (2018, November 2). Physiopedia, .