Quality Assured Clinic (QAC)

To become a QAC you and your MSK colleagues will need to continue inputting your data if you are already doing so or start now. Our University of Brighton team will download your data and will confirm those clinics to be awarded via email. Data downloads and QAC assessments will run alongside QAP assessments in January, May and September.

Here’s the criteria for becoming a QAC:

• All clinic staff must be collecting their patient data through Data for Impact. To do this, each team member will receive their own login, username and password and will also be collecting PROMs.
• All clinic MSK practitioners must be Physio First members or part-time subscribers, no matter their employment status – self-employed associate or employee (Part-time subscription is not available to practice principals, or those who are not participating in DfI). If you have any full time physiotherapists that need to join, you can benefit from significant discounts via Refer a Colleague (Our Refer a Colleague scheme is not open for part-time subscribers, please see our T&Cs here).
• This is open to all clinics of any size, from single-practitioner clinics to multi-practices.
• If you have part-time colleagues they can still participate through our new part-time subscription. They will be assessed on a pro-rata basis based on the number of hours they work.

Clinics will have their individual data amalgamated into one clinic report once consent is obtained from each participant. Only the practice principal will receive the clinic report. Individual participants who are also QAPs will have their own individual reports which can be used for CPD and peer review purposes.

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Annually sign a declaration sent to you by UoB, on application, stating the number of MSK staff in your clinic and providing the UoB with the number of hours they work a week when you apply for testing.

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This is fine you will not need to add them to your declaration as their data will obviously not be able to be entered into the DfI tool as this is for MSK patients only at present.

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A part-time subscription level has been created for private physiotherapists that work 20 hours or less and work for a clinic working towards Quality Assured Clinic (QAC) status by collecting data on all their new patients where possible. This new part-time subscriber category allows part time colleagues to pay a proportionally lower subscription rate and allow them to participate in a QAC status.

To apply for this rate, your practice must confirm in writing that you meet the definition of a part-time subscriber, and you work 20 hours or less per week. You must also begin to collect patient outcome data on Data for Impact (DfI) and be collecting PROMs within one calendar month of joining Physio First. Part-time subscription is not available to practice principals, sole practitioners or those who are not participating in DfI.

When joining Physio First as a part-time subscriber you will be asked to input the number of hours you work through our join online application.

Private physiotherapists who work alone or are the practice principal and have a stake in the business then you are not eligible for part-time subscription.

Please read our Terms and Conditions for Part-time Subscribers and working towards gaining the Quality Assured Clinic status.

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QAC data requirements

Practitioners should aim to collect data on all new MSK patients. Minimum data requirements have been agreed to minimise error and help ensure that the data submitted is reflective of a practitioner’s work load and the clinic. The agreed minimum data requirement for the QAC scheme are:

Sole practitioners:

• Require a minimum of 50 discharged data sets in the past twelve months

Clinics with multiple practitioners:

• Full-time practitioners require a minimum of 50 discharged data in the last 12 months. The minimum data requirements for part-time practitioners will be proportionate to their hours worked (i.e. their FTE status x 50 discharged data sets) please see Table 1*  
• Practitioners who are new to the DfI study (i.e. those who have joined within the last four months) will have no minimum data requirements providing that the percentage of new practitioners in the clinic does not exceed 20%**

 *Clinics with multiple practitioners require a minimum of 50 discharged data sets in the past 12 months in order to be eligible for QAC assessment. 

**Please note that the although eligible for QAC assessment, the data submitted by practitioners who are new to the DfI study (i.e. those who have joined within the last four months) will only be included into the data analysis if they meet the minimum data requirements (their FTE status x 50 discharged data sets).

Table 1.  Minimum data requirements for the QAC assessment for part-time practitioners

QAC analysis

The following approach will be used to calculate a clinic’s score in relation to each of the criterion:

• Firstly, an average of each of the practitioner’s data will be calculated.
• Secondly, each of the practitioners scores will be weighted according to their FTE status.  This approach will ensure that the clinic’s score is representative of their treatment provided to patients in that clinic.
• Calculations for QAC criteria will be based on the benchmarks set for the QAP assessment.  This will ensure consistency between the two schemes. See our FAQ ‘Which parts of our analysed data make up the Physio First QAP baseline?’ – click here

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Your QAC status lasts for a 12-month period. Once this is due to expire you will need to apply to UoB for retesting at the next download of data. QAC testing runs alongside our QAP testing  from data downloads in January, May and September each year if your clinic has collected sufficient data sets in the past 12 months and are collecting PROMs.

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Part-time subscriptions

• Go to join online - https://www.physiofirst.org.uk/join.html
• Complete step 1 all the way through to our privacy policy and payment screens
• You will be sent a confirmation email which will confirm you have joined Physio First as a part-time subscriber
• We will send you details on how to sign up to Data for Impact (which you must do within 1 calendar month from joining to obtain your part-time subscription)

If you work alone or are the practice principal you are not eligible for part-time subscription.

Introducing part-time subscriptions for Quality Assured Clinics

• When we first started exploring Quality Assured Clinic status we realised that a very important section of our industry would miss out on QAC status unless we created a new subscription category to allow for those working part time. Many clinics rely on part time staff and we felt it was only fair to make the scheme as open to them as possible.
• A part-time subscription level has been created for private physiotherapists that work 20 hours or less and work for a clinic working towards QAC status by collecting data on all their new patients where possible. This new part-time subscriber category allows part time colleagues to pay a proportionally lower subscription rate and allow them to participate in Quality Assured Clinic.
• To apply for this rate your practice principal must confirm in writing that you meet the definition of a part-time subscriber, and you work 20hrs or less per week. You must also begin to collect patient outcome data on Data for Impact and be collecting PROM’s within 1 calendar month of joining Physio First. Part-time subscription is not available to practice principals, or those who are not participating in Data for Impact.
• We have also created an ‘on hold’ subscription category for MSK clinicians who are on maternity leave, or absent from work in clinics working towards QAC status. This allows clinics who have absent staff during the data collection period to still take part. If the staff member returns within the next measuring period they will be required to become a member, or part-time subscriber, before the clinic can be measured again and gain or regain their QAC status.

Please read our Terms and Conditions for Part-time Subscribers and working towards gaining the Quality Assured Clinic status.

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You need to apply to the University of Brighton, who will send you a declaration form where you enter all the names of your MSK practitioners and the number of hours they work.

The University will then contact each practitioner, who must be actively participating in Data for Impact, to obtain their consent to amalgamate all of their data into your clinic report.

This report will then be tested against the criteria agreed between the University and Physio First and if you reach or are above the baseline then your clinic will be awarded Quality Assured Clinic status for the following twelve months.

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If your QAP status was awarded in the past 12 months and you are collecting PROMs then you can apply for QAC status, for the duration of your current QAP award. You simply have to contact the UoB at this email address physiosurvey@brighton.ac.uk and complete the declaration form confirming that you are the only MSK physiotherapist in your clinic.

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Yes, the only additional requirements over QAP status is a declaration by you to confirm that you are the only MSK physiotherapist in your practice. So, you need to:

• Contact the University of Brighton who will send you a declaration form which you need to complete to confirm that you are the only MSK physio in your clinic
• Have collected 50+ discharged datasets within 12 months
• Be collecting PROMs
• Reach criterion testing – for details please click here to read our FAQ ‘Which parts of our analysed data make up the Physio First QAP baseline?’ - see here

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You will have to apply to UoB who will amalgamate all the data from your clinic, once permission is obtained from your practitioners and there is sufficient data, the University will then pass the report to you as practice principal.

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The clinic will receive a certificate and QAC logo which will be sent by Physio First and the practice principal will receive this.

Once data has been extracted and tested the UoB will send through a clinic report to your practice principal, if you have been successful in testing you will have to send through the email you get to minerva@physiofirst.org.uk

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