Always evolving: CSP Council chair Sylvia Wojciechowski

Sylvia gave up a dancing career due to an injury and came to the profession via a disappointing experience of physiotherapy.

A knee injury while working as a professional ballet dancer in her early 20s brought Sylvia to a ‘what do I do?’ moment.

‘I’d torn ligaments in my knee. I didn’t necessarily want to go down the surgical route because there was no definite guarantee that it was going to get me back into being at a level of which I could perform at.’

‘Dancers’ careers don’t go on forever, dancing is a brutal world in the sense that there’s a thousand and one people behind you to take your place. So, I thought, well, maybe now is the time to retrain.’

‘Obviously I had to have physiotherapy as part of my injury, but the physiotherapy practice where I was sent was not necessarily the way I would like to see physiotherapy practiced. 

‘So, I then thought, well, maybe that’s not an area that I would go into.

‘The clinic, and we’re talking many years ago, had six of us lined up on couches, with an electrotherapy machine stuck on us. 

There wasn’t really much hands-on rehab. This was in the early 90s when electrotherapy was quite a big thing, it felt like I was a bit on a production line. For me, having personalised, individualised care is vital and it’s a theme that’s continued through my career. I’m passionate about personalised care and shared decision making.’

Dancer to physio

In future years Sylvia became a ‘shared decision making’ trainer and was the lead for her trust.  

‘It’s about, how do you empower and work with clients to understand what motivates them, what’s their problem, what’s important to them, how do we come up with a treatment plan that’s going to work? You can’t just hand out a sheet of exercises and think it’s going to be the same for each person.’ 

Education wasn’t a ‘huge piece’ at the Royal Ballet School so Sylvia had to go to college to do A levels in order to move forward, as there were no apprenticeships routes then. At the same time, she needed to do something to support herself, so she also trained and took recognised exams in both massage and as a fitness instructor. Having got her A levels, she went on to the University of Birmingham to do her physio degree.  

‘What convinced me about physio as a career was having gone back to other physios, I realised that what I had first seen wasn’t the true face of physiotherapy.’ 

Throughout her studies she taught fitness classes, strength training and personal training in the evenings and weekends. ‘Having that additional knowledge was a great complement to my studies, allowing me to work in local leisure centres and gyms, focusing on fitness rather than rehabilitation. This insight into the wider world of health and wellbeing, gave me the confidence to advise people about basic form and good technique.’

Clinician to leader

Sylvia did all her rotations at Frimley Park Hospital where she has remained since qualifying, although she has worked privately alongside her NHS role.

‘I did struggle choosing between neuro and MSK, because for me, and whether it’s my dance influence, I think so much about physio is about restoration of normal movement. Regardless of who your client is it’s all about how we get somebody to move in the best possible way.

‘There was a new foot and ankle consultant looking to work with a physio and I thought, that’s my weakest area so that’s the area that I’m going to step into.’

Sylvia went on to become an advanced practice physiotherapist, specialising in foot and ankle clinics for 18 years.
Initially there weren’t many people in the NHS specialising in foot and ankle and Sylvia became an early committee member of the Association of Foot and Ankle Physiotherapists, to help promote best practice.

In 2013 her manager persuaded her to set up and deliver a tier 2 MSK service and then in 2016 she became an early implementer of an FCP service, including creating an 18-month training programme to ‘grow’ FCP’s, which was subsequently filmed by Health Education England ‘way before all of the roadmap to practice stuff.’

In 2018 a leadership programme ‘made me think that I wanted to move more into a strategic role. After years of working as a clinician to improve individual lives, I began to ask myself, “How can I create a broader impact on a larger scale?”’

She was already leading a large team of advanced practitioners and FCPs with contracts in primary care, in prisons and secondary care clinics. Wanting to get more involved, Sylvia asked a director how she could step into system working, and to her surprise she was asked to lead the MSK group, pre-integrated care system.

Redefining care

During Covid she was responsible for designing and standardising all of the MSK pathways across all of the primary care practices feeding into secondary care, and then, as a result of that, while still leading the advanced practice team, she took on the role of the orthopaedic strategic lead for her trust. 

Looking at the pressures across the system Sylvia introduced the getUbetter digital app to support people with MSK problems 24 hours a day. ‘I could sense the frustration of people not being able to get advice quickly enough.’ The app has been hugely successful and welcomed by patients and clinicians.  

Sylvia continues to utilise digital and AI in various aspects of her role and believes that integrating AI into physiotherapy can enhance our roles by streamlining tasks, allowing time to focus on those who need personalized care the most. 

As part of personalised care Sylvia became the trust’s shared decision-making lead and trainer, working with patient groups and colleagues to ensure this remained a priority. She was responsible for rolling out patient-initiated follow-ups (PIFU) across her trust but was determined to preserve the shared decision-making aspect. She emphasised that the absence of contact didn’t necessarily mean a patient didn’t need an appointment. To address this, she worked with colleagues to audit who was placed on a PIFU pathway and how the system was being used, ensuring it met patients’ needs effectively. 

Balancing leadership and growth

Sylvia is juggling lots of things at the moment.

Last September she took on a secondment as head of the allied health professions for Frimley integrated care system.

Asked for any advice for members with their career paths, Sylvia said: 

Sometimes you need to know what the art of the possible is. Just because you might start off in a traditional physiotherapy role it doesn’t necessarily mean that you only have the option of being clinical or managerial, there are many other ways to influence the physiotherapy career or profession. 

‘There’s also something about how we empower people to not be frightened to knock on people’s doors. I got my role in the system because I knocked on a door and said, “how do I get into this space?” There’s a certain amount of bravery that I think we need to foster.’

Sylvia has had coaching at various points in her career ‘which I definitely think helped me to think about those career crossroads; I think having time out to think about what’s important with a good coach is really empowering.’

Engagement with the CSP has been ‘at different moments’ starting out as a workplace health and safety rep for two years. She campaigned around a physiotherapy gym that got very cold in the winter and very hot in the summer. It was a health and safety issue primarily for the staff which would have impacted on the users.

Benefit of CSP involvement

On the benefits of being a rep of any kind, Sylvia says, ‘it gives you that exposure to leadership and being able to work with people that are outside of the physio department, whether it be staff side meetings, or talking to people who may be more senior than you. The negotiating skills you develop, being able to put things in a factual manner, to present your case, are all are vital skills, that you can transfer into a leadership role.’

I want to reach out and collaborate with members from all backgrounds and areas of work, because I really believe that we’re stronger together. None of us can do it alone.

She supported the CSP’s Workout at Work campaign trying to get people to be more active in their workplace and successfully took it to her local commissioning group.

On the value of the CSP as a member organisation the new chair of Council said: ‘It’s about strength in numbers. How do we collectively come together to raise the profile of our profession and to support each other in being the best versions of ourselves and that sharing of knowledge. The more you give to it the more you take out of it. You can be a member that sits out on the periphery, but you won’t necessarily get as much benefit as somebody who jumps in and engages. A little bit of effort can pay back tenfold.’

Leadership vision

‘One of the reasons why I stood for council is because I want to reach out and collaborate with members from all backgrounds and areas of work, because I really believe that we’re stronger together. None of us can do it alone. 

‘I don’t think a leader is about necessarily being up on this pedestal or out in front, a leader is about enabling everyone to come on the journey with you. I’m not a hierarchical leader in that sense, I like to collaborate. But I will step forward if I have to. My values of integrity, compassion and collaboration have been shaped by my parents. My dad was Polish and was part of the Warsaw Uprising in World War Two and came over to England after being released as a prisoner of war. He wanted to be an active part of this country, worked hard to learn the language. Similarly for my mum who is Austrian. That has given me some sense of what it means to have parents who aren’t British, who are trying to integrate into the country. In the 70s, when I was growing up it was quite a challenging time for people that weren’t seen as being British.’ 

After her election as CSP Council chair last October, Sylvia said she was feeling ‘lucky, proud, and panicked, all in one go.’

Is that still the case? ‘Slightly less panicked. There’s a level of responsibility that comes with being chair, and that shouldn’t be taken lightly.  It’s definitely a huge privilege to be in this position, it’s a healthy balance to have that “I hope I can do everything that members and council have put their faith in me” but at the same time I can only do what I can only do, so it’s about being open and honest and that for me, in everything that I do, means you have to bring your true self, because otherwise people see through you and then you have no credibility.’