We went face to face with Specialist Learning Disability Principal Physiotherapist, Lisa Inman, who makes specialist adjustments required to provide physiotherapy to adults with learning disabilities whose needs cannot be successfully met by mainstream services.
We talked to her about her career and what she likes to get up to away from the office.
What is your role?
People with learning disabilities are more likely to require health interventions, but less likely to successfully access them than the general population. In my role as a learning disability physiotherapist, we make specialist adjustments required to provide physiotherapy to adults with a learning disability. Either through supporting positive access to mainstream services, or by providing direct assessment and intervention. A large part of my role is to provide 24 hour postural management for people with complex physical disabilities.
Describe a typical day for you?
I am based in the community so usually start the day in our small office in Kendal, checking emails and responding to queries. I’ll then visit someone either in their home, at a day centre or occasionally in a clinic environment. I will work closely with their network of care/families to assess the person’s posture or mobility and any specialist equipment they have to check it meets their postural needs. This could be a sleep system to support someone in bed, a moulded armchair, specialist wheelchair or specialist walking aid. Alternatively I might support someone to do some shoulder exercises by singing along and doing the actions to YMCA! There really are no two days the same in learning disability physio and we have to be creative and build trust to engage people.
What’s the most rewarding part of your job?
I get to work with people for long periods of time, often on and off throughout their adult life. I love developing great working relationships with people and their families to support them to achieve a shared goal.
Some recent interventions I am proud of are providing a sleep system to improve comfort in bed which resulted in someone suddenly sleeping through the night after years of disrupted sleep. I also supported a full time wheelchair user to stand and walk for the first time in years in a Meywalk (a specialist walking aid), which she then used to perform the lead role of Sandy from Grease in her day centre production.
What’s the most challenging part of your job?
We work across lots of different partner agencies, so are often at the mercy of others to achieve outcomes. This could mean waiting for joint appointments with wheelchair services to adjust someone’s sitting posture, facilitating hydrotherapy access or receiving funding approvals from continuing health teams for pieces of equipment. I am currently working closely with teams such as community physio, paediatric therapy teams and occupational therapy services to try to improve some of these shared pathways going forward.
How long have you been with the Trust?
I qualified as a physiotherapist in 2006 and started working in our local acute Trust. I moved to my current team in Cumbria Partnership Trust in 2017 as a band 6 specialist learning disability physio, since merging with LSCft I have progressed to band 7 two years ago. I have recently been successful in applying for a principle learning disability physio role across LSCft and am due to start in the next couple of months.
Where are you from?
I live on a dairy and sheep farm in a tiny village in South Cumbria on the edge of the Lake District.
What do you get up to in your spare time?
I work part time and spend my ‘days off’ helping my husband on our farm or running around after my three young daughters. It’s currently lambing time and we are expecting around 700 lambs on top of the usual cow milking duties. My favourite job is bottle feeding the pet lambs, which are sometimes found in a recycling box in my kitchen! I love to wild swim in Windermere or Coniston, and do a bit of running around my local trails if I can find a spare hour here and there.
What’s your favourite holiday destination?
We spent our honeymoon travelling around New Zealand for three weeks in a camper van, it’s my favourite trip ever.
Favourite food?
I’m obsessed with cooking programmes like Masterchef, Great British Menu and love to cook. Equally I’m also really happy with a piece of lemon drizzle cake or even a custard cream dunked in a cup of tea.
What’s your favourite movie?
I’m working my way through some 90s classics with my eldest daughter at the moment, we’ve just enjoyed Mrs Doubtfire and Cool Runnings, otherwise its Disney all the way in this house, I don’t get any say!
Tea or coffee?
Tea always.
What are your dislikes/pet peeves?
I hate the smell of coffee and I hate it when we run out of milk! We live on a dairy farm producing 5000 litres of milk a day, but if the milk tanker has already been to collect it I have to wait until evening for a cup of tea or it’s a three mile drive to the local shop.
What are you most likely to be overheard saying?
In our Kendal office definitely “Should we have a cup of tea?”
Tell us something you’re proud of?
It’s really hard managing conflicting work pressures when you are part time, but with my other commitments as a mum/farmer’s wife, it’s not possible at present for me to work full time. I am very proud that others have recognised my commitment and passion for learning disability physio, despite my part time hours, and I have been able to progress in a career I love without compromising my work life balance.
