Jenny Nissler - 30 DoS - Day 8

I’ve not been an active member of the CPN to date, but I am an interested one. I’m not an academic, which is my perception of the mainstay of this group, but I do think and care deeply about our profession. I was invited to the group by a one-time colleague at the Chartered Society of Physiotherapy who was a founding member of the CPN. Many professional practice issues were discussed as part of a service supporting UK physiotherapists, doing our utmost to help each person with their particular situation, developing our own and their own critical thinking with each one.

I was a sporty child and young woman who switched to a sporty version of physiotherapy from a BA in Sport and Recreation, having become interested in physiotherapy after a module on Sports Injuries. I qualified in the first cohort of physiotherapists at Pinderfields after the curriculum changed to that of an approved UK physiotherapy course. I will attach my CV, but my long and winding, enjoyable and worthwhile physiotherapy road eventually and inevitably led me to Occupational Health. That was my real interest as it turned out; how people carry out their work, how they move and behave in the workplace — initiated after visiting my sister in her open-plan office in the late 90s, and being shocked at and fascinated by at the uniformly appalling desk-based postures that I saw there.

In 2020, I ended a long stint working as a professional adviser for the UK professional body, advising, writing publications and influencing policy initially on fitness for work — during which I learned about actually being in an open-plan office and the importance and influence of organisational culture on the mental and physical health of employees. I now specialise in providing ergonomic assessments for companies and individuals in Oxford and London. It will be an interesting time for the world of work, as hybrid working practice is set to stay. To my mind, this is a very healthy development for some people, but not all.

What do I bring to the CPN?

Clinical experience, pragmatism, care.

How would I like to see the CPN develop over the next few years?

I’m not sure I’m qualified to comment, but from experience so far, it’s important to continue to exist and to be available as a challenging, alternate voice for the profession. Perhaps become more active in the mainstream when the time is right.

How would I like to see the broader physiotherapy profession develop?

Ethically, with full consideration of what to keep and what to move on from; challenging but working with government and supporting communities. Provide what people with and without health conditions need, facilitating them to live as well as they are able, in a way that lets people know that they are valued.

This route is what I hope for the wider profession. I don’t think it will be easy. In the UK, there are ever-present funding issues within the National Health Service (NHS), a disunited devolved health service and a reliance on the Third, Charity sector to make up the gap in the public finances. There is tension and misunderstanding between the public and private physiotherapy sector.

The physiotherapy badge is the one I was awarded when I qualified. It features the three English lions, the ‘ray’ of electrotherapy and the pair of hands denoting manual therapy. To me, this represents both the stasis and the evolution of the profession, and the need to be mindful to incorporate both our own minds and bodies in our work as we evolve.