Children’s Community Physiotherapy Service

What Does Our Service Do?

Children’s Community Physiotherapy Service is provided for children and young people with disorders or delays in their movement skills who will benefit from physiotherapy. Physiotherapy helps to develop (or re-gain) movement abilities and prevent or minimise long term problems and can be summarised as the ‘Medicine for Movement’. Physiotherapists provide assessments, therapy, practical advice, strategies and equipment to ensure children with physical needs are able to develop and achieve physically, academically, socially and emotionally, with support of family and carers, to reach their full potential.

Physiotherapy staff work in a multi-agency context with partners in education and acute hospital trusts.

How Does Our Service Work?

All children accepted into the service will receive a letter inviting them and their parents or carers to an appointment for assessment. On attendance they can expect a full assessment of their physical difficulties which usually involves a full history, physical examination and assessment of movement which is carried out within a relaxed and play environment. Consent for treatment should be discussed along with any risks and benefits of the proposed therapy. Most first and subsequent appointments take one hour. Families are given help and guidance to carry out the physical activities recommended on a regular basis and sometimes schools help in this process. Families can expect that goals of therapy are agreed and a plan for either longer term care or discharge are agreed.

The service has a total staff number of around 25 physiotherapists and 5 Support staff, with some part-time and some full-time. Each full time physiotherapist has approximately 50 children on their caseload some of which are seen weekly or fortnightly and some less frequently depending on the child’s needs. An average treatment session lasts an hour. There are currently around 800 children across Leicester, Leicestershire and Rutland having physiotherapy.

Children are usually seen in a local clinic setting (health centre or children’s centre). Occasionally visits to educational settings may be carried out to help the children engage in school curriculum activities.

Home visits may be offered where necessary to meet specific needs of a child and family. Physical programmes need to be practiced regularly to be effective and are therefore built into the child’s play and routine with parents/carers, education staff etc. in partnership with the Physiotherapist. From time to time a child may need specialist handling skills from the Physiotherapist to assess and develop ongoing treatment programmes. Areas of specialist skill and knowledge in the service are shared for consultation in areas such as specific treatment approaches, orthopaedic consultations etc.

How Can You Access Our Service?

To access our service you can:

Speak to your GP
Speak to any other healthcare professional involved in your care
Speak to school staff
Contact us directly if your child has been seen by the service in the last six months