Physio Dept Will Make Every Contact Count The Physiotherapy Department at the Trust has embarked on an initiative called ‘Make Every Contact Count’, to engage in ‘healthy conversations’ with their patients regarding physical activity levels. The initiative has been driven by a growing demand for Allied Health Professionals (AHPs) to take a proactive approach to health prevention. The recently published NHS Five Year Forward View highlights the importance of this, due to such factors as an aging population and a rise in obesity levels, placing greater strain on public resources. It points out that In order for the NHS to be sustainable, there needs to be a ‘radical upgrade in prevention in public health’. Deborah Bancroft, Advanced Physiotherapy Practitioner at The Pennine Acute Hospitals NHS Trust said: “Physiotherapists are exercise specialists and regularly adopt ‘behavioural change management’ approaches with their patients, particularly in those with persistent pain. Low physical activity levels can result in poor outcomes for those patients self managing their long term conditions. Introducing ‘healthy conversations’ with patients about lifestyle choices is a natural progression of the approach we already adopt with patients, especially where barriers to recovery are identified. “The initiative will help us: gain a greater insight into the general activity levels of our patient population, enable us to timely signpost them to appropriate local services and redesign existing physiotherapy services, create wider partnership working opportunities, encourage our staff to keep active and lead by example as well as improving the long-term outcomes for our patients” The departments’ initiative will be included in a report following a joint review being carried out by The Royal Society for Public Health and Public Health England, which is looking to provide recommendations to all AHP governing bodies to prepare them to contribute to the current public health agenda on health prevention.