Spotlight on Karen… and our fabulous respiratory physiotherapy clinic at UNTIL

Now for a little Q&A with Karen…

Tell us a bit about yourself & how you got here!

After working in the NHS for a number of years I found that the demands of 12 hours days and shift work weren’t compatible with having a young family. I’d worked with Emily – the founder of Air Physiotherapy – in the NHS around 9 years ago, and she’s someone I work really well with and have a huge amount of respect for. Coming to the role was a no brainer for me. Knowing how focused and driven Emily is to not only provide patients with the best possible care but also to develop the business, I felt like it was an exciting move. It means that I benefit from the best of all worlds: a business that’s evolving and developing but also has the ethos of teamwork and support I experienced within the NHS. It’s also given me opportunities for my own personal development that I’d not yet been exposed to. 

I feel like it’s the job I’ve enjoyed most in my career so far – I can honestly say that I haven’t looked back!

What’s different about running the respiratory physiotherapy clinic?

I’m thoroughly enjoying getting into an outpatient setting within the clinic offering – it’s a very different pressure to that of home visits where you’re moving from one patient’s home to the next and the time pressures that entails. The role is so varied – working face to face with patients but also offering virtual appointments to patients online.

Now that I’m running the respiratory physiotherapy clinic, I also have that management role which has been great to get stuck into!

What are you most excited about with the new role?

It’s been really exciting working closely with Emily on the strategy for the business, taking a good look at the service we’re providing, how it’s serving patients’ needs and how it can be improved. Our new location at UNTIL has opened up the ability for us to offer an even better service and enabled us to introduce our treatment pathway.

Rather than just addressing a patient’s breathing problems in isolation, our new pathway takes a much more holistic approach that takes into account the needs of a patient as a whole. Beyond looking at just the physiological processes that are causing issues with a patient’s breathing, we can tap into any psychological issues or biomechanical changes too. The facilities onsite at UNTIL enable us to provide a personalised, bespoke exercise programme too. All of this can now be delivered under one roof meaning we can delve deeper into what the patient wants and even more importantly, what they need and treat it.

We’ve had some fantastic feedback from patients on just how much of a difference this has made to their lives – some patients travel for well over an hour to come into the clinic because of the service we can now offer.

The fundamental point for us is to see an improvement in patient outcome and patient experience, which in turn will be recognised by the consultants who refer their patients to us and we believe the treatment pathway offers the very best way for us to achieve this.

Any challenges?

The biggest challenge is time! It can disappear so quickly within an appointment so we’re working on ensuring our assessment process is as efficient and effective as possible, whilst delivering maximum impact within the session so that patients believe in it, can really see the benefit, and are motivated to continue with their exercises at home… which also makes a huge difference to the outcome of their treatment.

To book your appointment at the clinic click here or call 0207 971 1464.