Every year over 16 million people in the UK need to manage their back pain and, of these, around seven million NHS patients will consult their GPs for help.
Professor Ann Moore, Director of the Clinical Research Centre for Health Professions and Professor of Physiotherapy at the university, has designed her musculoskeletal research to underpin the work of the allied health professions both in the NHS and in private practice, and including osteopaths.
One pressing issue is the quality of the data that the researchers have available to work with. Here Professor Moore has worked to enable health professionals, particularly physiotherapists and more recently osteopaths, to collect high quality data in practice. Physiotherapy standardised data collection tools (SDC) have been developed for use in NHS and private practice.
These SDC tools included forms to collect patient data as well as information around presenting symptoms, management and treatment at first, second and subsequent appointments and final outcome(s) of care. They were agreed by a nominal group and a series of comprehensive pilot studies followed.
This innovative work led to investment by the Physio First organisation that has approximately 4,200 members in the UK. A new tool was developed for the organisation that has since been used by individual practitioners and also by physio first for eight snapshot surveys.
Similar work was undertaken for the osteopathic profession where the information gathered using the developed osteopath-specific tool was used by the regulator General Osteopathic Council (GOsC). The findings have provided the regulator with a range of patient views on the quality of osteopathic patient care. It has used this information to refocus the information it gives out to the public. It has also led to the development of revised General Osteopathic Council Osteopathic Practice Standards that will take effect from 1 September 2012.
The sharing of research findings with clinicians has also been an area to benefit from Professor Moore's efforts. She explains: "It's very important that we get information out to practitioners in a user-friendly way; it's about getting reports that are of reasonable size for them to digest in day-to-day practice."
According to Karen Middleton, Chief Health Professions Officer at the Department of Health: "It's absolutely imperative that everything we deliver in the health service is evidence based, is best practice, and is the most effective and efficient treatment and intervention that we can possibly deliver. Research enables us to make sure that the allied health professionals are delivering all those things. It's also important to stimulate innovation."
Under Professor Moore's leadership the University of Brighton facilitated the formation of the National Physiotherapy Research Network, recently merged into the Allied Health Professions Research Network. The creation of the new network, of which Professor Moore is the chair, will mean allied health professionals being able to work together more closely in the fields of research.In a partnership between the University of Brighton, Southampton University and King's College, London, the network can use 23 research hubs across the UK and Republic of Ireland, in its work. It has representation from a range of health professions in addition to physiotherapists, including occupational therapists, podiatrists, speech and language therapists, dieticians, radiographers and orthoptists. From this broader membership base, the network can facilitate more sharing of expertise and allow the most to be made of the research resources available across the allied health professions.
With millions of adults in the UK suffering from musculoskeletal problems at some point in their lives, Professor Moore's work on new approaches to research trials, improved data collection tools and greater cross-working amongst allied health research professionals has the potential to benefit the lives of many people across the UK.
