Service : Musculoskeletal Physiotherapy Outpatients

Service overview

We can create treatment plans with you to manage or improve musculoskeletal conditions. The treatment plan will often include advice and exercises, but other treatments may include attending our classes, one-to-one rehabilitation sessions with our physiotherapy assistants, manual therapy or acupuncture.

Common conditions we treat include:

Neck or back pain, including sciatica
Osteoarthritis
Fractures
Tendon issues e.g. tennis elbow, achilles tendinopathy
Ligament issues e.g tear or rupture
Recovering from musculoskeletal surgery
Long term conditions such as rheumatoid arthritis and chronic pain

How we can help

We can offer advice about how to manage your symptoms, including:

exercises you can do at home, in the gym or as part of one of our classes to improve your strength, co-ordination and balance
advice on how to reduce or manage your pain effectively
rehabilitation to help improve your daily movements and reduce factors contributing to your pain
returning to or starting sports and hobbies
manual therapy

Accessing our service

You can be referred to our service in many ways including by your GP, consultant or you can use our online form to self-refer.

Unfortunately we do not accept telephone self-referrals.
Please review our help and guidance below prior to completing a self-referral form. If your pain does not improve after following the advice provided then please self refer.

The self referral form will ask you questions specific to your injury. If you would like to be assessed for more than one body part or for multiple injuries please complete a separate referral form for each one.

Once you submit your form, your referral will be reviewed by one of our senior clinicians and you will be contacted via phone or letter when we are able to offer you an appointment.

Preparing for an assessment

Once you have been referred to our service, we'll contact you by post or telephone to book your first appointment.

We may ask you to complete a questionnaire before your first appointment. Please also bring with you a list of your current medication and any communications between you and your GP, specialist or consultant.

During your first appointment, we’ll have a conversation about your current condition to understand your problem and how it affects your life before we carry out a physical assessment. This can last up to 45 minutes depending on your condition.

If your appointment is face-to-face, we may ask you to take off some items of clothing to help with our assessment, if you feel comfortable doing so.

If you need to cancel or reschedule your appointment, please let us know as soon as possible. If you miss your appointment and don’t reschedule within a week, we’ll discharge you back to your GP.

Managing your health

Self care

We’ve created self-care leaflets with simple exercises you can do at home to improve mobility and ease pain. These leaflets are designed to complement the advice given by your GP and physiotherapist.

We have also created videos to explain what causes pain and how you can ease your symptoms.

Self care leaflets

View all of our self care leaflets, to help you ease your symptoms at home.

View all self care leaflets

Managing your long term pain

You can also visit NSH approved websites for more advice on managing long term pain

Visit the NHS article on reducing pain

Your e-Health Passport

Your e-Health Passport lets us know what's important to you - from your preferred name and pronouns to how you'd like us to support you and communicate with you.

Learn more

Contact us and FAQs

We have teams based across Berkshire.

If you feel that your symptoms are of an urgent nature, or if you need any assistance please call or email us.