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Gosling S.1
1Chartered Society of Physiotherapy, Practice & Development, London, United Kingdom
Background: In November 2015, the government for England announced a change to healthcare education and student funding arrangements. This signalled a shift (from 2017/18) from healthcare education programmes and students being funded by the National Health Service to their being subject to the mainstream tuition fee/student loan model in place in higher education in England since 2012.
Other parallel developments included the government lifting the cap on student numbers in 2015, progressing the apprenticeship agenda via the Enterprise Act, 2016, and launching the Higher Education and Research Bill (with focuses on teaching quality and expansion of higher education providers).
Other parallel developments included the government lifting the cap on student numbers in 2015, progressing the apprenticeship agenda via the Enterprise Act, 2016, and launching the Higher Education and Research Bill (with focuses on teaching quality and expansion of higher education providers).
Purpose: Anticipation of the announced change to funding arrangements prompted the Chartered Society of Physiotherapy (CSP) to engage in concerted activity to ensure physiotherapy education remained open to all (regardless of financial background); to uphold education´s quality and relevance in response to changing service and patient needs; and to achieve alignment between physiotherapy workforce supply and demand.
Progressing a programme of activity provided the CSP with the opportunity to demonstrate strong leadership in a context of significant uncertainty and change, and to address the physiotherapy workforce shortages that its own workforce data modelling had identified had arisen through NHS-funding arrangements for physiotherapy education and students.
Progressing a programme of activity provided the CSP with the opportunity to demonstrate strong leadership in a context of significant uncertainty and change, and to address the physiotherapy workforce shortages that its own workforce data modelling had identified had arisen through NHS-funding arrangements for physiotherapy education and students.
Methods: The CSP facilitated structured member debate and engagement on the issues; pursued influencing activity with government ministers, departments and bodies (including in response to consultations and through submitting parliamentary questions and briefings); and networked with other healthcare member organisations and university representative bodies.
The CSP governing bodys formulated a supportive position on the funding changes, with caveats relating to safeguarding admission to the profession, education quality and workforce supply. It also oversaw identifying and addressing priorities for on-going CSP activity.
Results: The CSP focused activity on pursuing priorities for the future security and development of physiotherapy qualifying education and workforce supply. These included lobbying for a strategic approach to using remaining elements of public funding to sustain programmes development and delivery to enable workforce growth; engaging the profession in maximising capacity for practice-based learning through a strengthened, collective commitment to educating future members of the profession; and responding to increasing interest in delivering qualifying physiotherapy education (from new providers and through designing new types of programme, including degree-level apprenticeships). The activity strengthened the CSP´s position on issues relating to education quality and responsiveness to workforce needs, and member engagement on key issues affecting the profession.
Conclusion(s): The CSP´s response to the funding changes sharpened its supportive leadership; priorities for influencing, networking and member engagement; and exercising its quality assurance/enhancement role to uphold standards in the context of new providers/types of provision - recognising developments could profoundly affect the future profile and size of the physiotherapy profession in England.
Implications: Government decisions in England simultaneously presented physiotherapy with opportunities for growth and risks of instability. On-going CSP activity will focus on upholding the quality, position and volume of physiotherapy education, within an open, increasingly competitive and diverse market. Lessons learned should have relevance to developments facing the profession elsewhere.
Funding acknowledgements: The programme of activity was supported by the CSP´s corporate revenue/staff budget.
Topic: Education
Ethics approval: Ethics approval was not required for this activity.
All authors, affiliations and abstracts have been published as submitted.
