"Encouraging and empowering"

I would like to express my heartfelt thanks to the paediatric physio team based at the bungalows in Larbert, and in particular Karyn. My daughter was referred with torticollis. Up to the point of seeing Karyn, we were trying our best at home to do exercises with our daughter based on what we had read on the internet, but we were never sure if we were doing the right thing or doing it enough times.

We were seen within a week of the self referral going in. Karyn was so caring to our daughter, taking her through her examination and whilst performing exercises with her. She understood the bigger picture and found ways for us to do exercises with our daughter which fitted in with also caring for my other children. She was encouraging and empowering to us as parents and importantly reassuring to us. She allowed me to bring my other children to the appointments which helped enormously. She provided expert skills in her care and without her my daughter would not have improved in the way she has done and we will be eternally grateful for all of her help.

My only criticism would be the delay in being referred to physio in the first place. We raised concerns about our daughter having torticollis to our health visitor at her 6-week check and was told to discuss with our GP at her 8-week check. The GP then said she had to be seen by a paediatric consultant first, who we did not see until our daughter was 14 weeks old, and then we were told he had to refer to physio. It was only when I chased the referral when our daughter was 16 weeks old, that I discovered I could have self referred her myself when she was 6 weeks old and it was myself who then self referred her as they still had not received the referral from the consultant.

I’m not sure if it was isolated to the health visitor / GP we were under at the time or whether there needs to be more education / awareness given to the health visitor and GP teams about informing parents they can self refer to physio as had we been told this when we first raised our concerns, my daughter would have been seen much earlier.