Long arm practice supervision for physiotherapy learners

Ashworth, Victoria; Cropper, Emma; Dunford, Alex; Fletcher, Julie; Hayes, Cassie; O’Connor, Deborah; Weir, Katja; Stephens, Melanie

Abstract

Recent changes to pre-registration education and issues in placement capacity (NHS England, 2025) have led to an interest in, and the use of, social care settings as a learning environment for physiotherapy programmes. At the same time Skills for Care (Skills for Care, 2025) have published a new workforce strategy highlighting the need for new, different roles and skills of the social care workforce to meet the changing needs of the sector. This change in direction is further supported by the Chief Medical Officer (Chief Medical Officers Annual Report, 2024) who recommends care organisations focus on physical activity to preserve the health of the populations in which they serve. In response, some organisations have commenced formal physiotherapy provision into social care settings with clinics (Souster, 2024), referral pathways (McLay and O'Donnell, 2024 Jun 1) and postural assessment tools (Hull et al., 2024 Jun 1). However, to truly embrace this changing landscape and facilitate physiotherapy placements within the sector, a new way of supervising and assessing learners in required.

• Journal Article Type: Editorial
• Acceptance Date: Feb 24, 2025
• Online Publication Date: Mar 23, 2025
• Publication Date: 2025-02
• Deposit Date: Feb 28, 2025
• Publicly Available Date: Mar 1, 2026
• Journal: Physiotherapy
• Print ISSN: 0031-9406
• Electronic ISSN: 1873-1465
• Publisher: Elsevier
• Peer Reviewed: Peer Reviewed
• Volume: 128
• Article Number: 101778
• Pages: 101778
• DOI: https://doi.org/10.1016/j.physio.2025.101778
• Keywords: Long arm practice supervision, indirect supervision, non-traditional placements, care homes, social care, physiotherapy learners