Q&A WITH A LOCUM PHYSIOTHERAPIST
1. What is your job role? Currently I am working in the community - seeing mostly post stroke patients after they have been discharged from hospital, but we also see patients with other neurological conditions
2. How has the pandemic affected your role? With regards to working, it was very different in the beginning - I was actually with a different community team at the time and we basically stopped seeing all patients in the community. We were already switching to teletherapy sessions but the majority of the caseload were elderly so many patients couldn't access these appointments. Now things are slowly returning to normal, we are seeing patients but the length of time they are with us for has been halved to allow us to keep the waiting list down.
3. How long have you been in your current locum position? When the pandemic started and the patients were not getting seen in the community, the majority of the staff were redeployed and so there was no longer a need for a locum role in that team. I have however been in my current team for the past 8-9 months.
4. Have you been able to keep in continuous work? I had a period of about 1 month with no work last April - but that actually worked out really well for me because I was also doing my MSc, so it meant I had the time to focus on my uni work. I did take a job that was about an hours commute away, but luckily that was only for a couple months until the job I'm in at the moment came up. This is actually a trust I was working for in my last permanent role.
5. What advice have you got for locum physiotherapists? Ask in your previous roles if they need any locums. The demand for work will always be there and will always change, so don't worry if for a short time you're having to take a job that is a little further away than you'd like.
It's really nice having a good relationship with your agent - James and I get on really well and so the chat isn't always just about work so it makes it a lot easier if there's issues or things you want to discuss.
