We need to talk about data

For many years the CSP has spoken about how best to support the physiotherapy profession to showcase what we do, our impact, how we support and improve the lives of our patients, and how we influence those around us to continue to invest in our services.

The CSP hears the problems that you, our members, are facing every day; including reductions in funding and continued loss of space. We have also heard via the Digital and Informatics Physiotherapy Group (DIPG), our community rehab survey and the insight work for our Physiotherapy Health Informatics Strategy, the challenges and realities our members face in practice.

Some of these challenges centre around data, whether that be in understanding what it is, what it can do for you, or how it helps deliver the best care for your patients. We need to explore this further.

If we, as a profession, better understand how to access, use, and share the data available to us, we will be able to identify and address inequity, and shape services that people can access when and where they need them.

We can demonstrate the benefits we make to people's lives, our value for money and show how we reduce service utilisation in different parts of the system.

By telling stories using qualitative, outcome, service, and population data, we will clearly demonstrate the impact and value our services provide. This will better position physiotherapists to provide evidence for what we do and withstand any challenges that may come our way.

We, the CSP, understand your challenges, but we would like you to tell us more. We would like to invite you to have some open and honest conversations with us about the challenges and problems you have, as well as the successes; as an individual, a team, or a service.

We want to hear your stories and work with you to create safe spaces for sharing and learning, and ultimately changing what we, as a profession, do. This is our vision for physiotherapy and a journey we want to support you all to take.