North Cumbria's physiotherapy capacity is set to increase, thanks to an innovative NHS and university partnership in Carlisle.

The University of Cumbria, in collaboration with North Cumbria Integrated Care (NCIC) NHS Foundation Trust, has launched a new NHS musculo-skeletal physiotherapy (MSK) outpatient clinic at its Fusehill Street campus location.

This is the first of its kind, with students supported to treat physiotherapy out-patients referred through the NHS to a university-based clinic.

This ground-breaking initiative has been facilitated by £80,000 grant funding from Health Education England, used by the University of Cumbria to refurbish old classrooms into a dedicated clinical area for physiotherapy.

The clinical area is now used by the NCIC physiotherapy teams to see patients while also mentoring and supporting physiotherapy students at the university.

One patient to benefit from this innovative clinic is Gary Thomson from Carlisle, who received physiotherapy from the students after rupturing an upper-arm tendon.

Speaking about his treatment, Gary said, "The service has been fantastic. It’s been really wonderful and I would recommend this service to anyone."

Sarah Smith, the Principal Lecturer for Rehabilitation and Physiotherapy at the University of Cumbria, offered some insights into the partnership's potential future impact.

She said: “This unique partnership means, from autumn 2023, there will be a fourfold increase in the numbers of student placements that can be supported.

"It will help develop and maintain north Cumbria’s next generation of physiotherapists and provide them with best practice learning opportunity.

"The long-term ambition is to develop this partnership to further support student placements and current workforce development. It is hoped that more patients can be treated and therefore reduce the waiting times for physiotherapy in north Cumbria.

The collaboration will be a pilot for the first year and longer term we want to explore opportunities for similar partnership working with other NHS services in north Cumbria.”

As well as assessing and treating patients in the clinic, students are developing learning resources to be used in all MSK services across north Cumbria as part of patient management.

On placement, students spend three days a week treating patients appropriate to their skills and knowledge in clinic, and two days conducting research into the health care needs of the county, as well as honing skills through simulation.

Two students currently on placement at the clinic, Georgia Clark and Jemma Knowles, praised the scheme.

Georgia said: “It’s great, we are able to get a feel of real life with real patients and real conditions working alongside the educators.

"We have been given our own caseload so that when we are qualified we know how to manage that efficiently, treating patients and writing up case notes.”

Jemma said: : “It’s so helpful and we are using real life skills and we are seeing a wide range of conditions. The educators are here to help all the time and we feel very supported and that’s what the NHS is like – supporting each other. "

The physiotherapy clinic is just one branch of the university's wider health initiatives.

Sarah Smith said: "As well as the new Cumbria School of Medicine being delivered in partnership with Imperial College London, which aims to train doctors for the area, the physiotherapy clinic is focused on understanding and improving the local community’s physical health."

Rebecca Tiffen, east Cumbria physiotherapy team lead at NCIC, said: "This collaboration means that we are investing in our current and our future workforce.

"We are passionate about growing our own workforce by giving those coming through the university the best possible experience and also developing the current team by giving opportunities to develop their career.”