Physiotherapy: Data For Impact (2022-2023)

The Data For Impact project is an ongoing, collaborative project between the University of Brighton (UoB) and Physio First (the organisation for chartered physiotherapists in private practice in the UK) which began in 2005. The overarching aim of the project is to gain fuller information about current practice, patient demographics and outcomes of care within physiotherapy private practices in the UK.

The DfI project has a direct and significant effect within private practice. More than 1,100 Physio First members have registered to participate in the project, inputting standardised data via an online portal (managed by the team) within their clinics. In addition to the Standardised Data Collection system, practitioners registered for the DfI project are also offered access to the online Patient Reported Outcome and Experience Measures (PROMs and PREMs) including, the Brighton Musculoskeletal Patient Reported Outcome Measure (BmPROM) that was developed by the Data for Impact research team.

Data is used to provide descriptive analyses to the stakeholders including reports on an individual level (i.e. to the practitioners), national reports, as well as a wider academic audience through research articles and conference presentations. Since 2016, data that is collected has been also used in the assessments for the Physio First Quality Assured Practitioner (QAP) and Quality Assured Clinic (QAC) schemes. The DfI team analyse the data against a set of quality criteria and provide results and feedback to practitioners and clinics.