Conference

By August we should have been making firm plans with international speakers, the venue, the hotel for 2021, etc. but as there are still too many uncertainties regarding the ongoing effects of the pandemic, we have had to think long and hard about the feasibility of holding our conference in 2021. We have considered every eventuality, and possible scenario, and finally come to the conclusion that we could not go ahead with next year’s conference with confidence.  We are sorry to have to make this decision, but we are sure that everyone will understand.

We are currently using what we have learned during COVID-19 to formulate a new and exciting Physio First project. This has involved investigating how we can provide webinars for our members, hopefully in the first instance from the speakers we had lined up for our 2021 conference. So look out for details in our bulletins, on our website and on our member only LinkedIn forum. We are confident, given the way our members have embraced new ways of working and accessing online support, that this initiative to offer a digital learning experience will be well received and seen as a way in which Physio First continues in our commitment to deliver ongoing high quality education.

In addition, we are looking at how we develop the webinar meet-ups that became a feature of the pandemic. The opportunity for members to meet up on Zoom facilitated by our Regional Officers, who are rapidly becoming our community representatives, which have proved so popular and so cathartic.

We will, of course, also continue to consider what format our annual conference may take in the years to come when the future is more certain and we have had opportunity to obtain and review feedback from you, our members.

We are confident that you will understand our reasoning for this decision, and we hope you will support our Physio First volunteer and office team as we offer what we are sure will be new and exciting ventures aimed at providing everything you need to become a thriving provider of demonstrable quality private physiotherapy within a strong, influential and trusted community’

Yes! If you are a student or graduate, our full conference is priced at £179. You can also attend conference for either the Friday or Saturday at a cost of £95.

If you would like more information or to book your place, please call our conference team on 01604 684 965. Please note that you will be requested to provide information about your undergraduate degree at the time of booking and the sales receipt will be sent to your student email address.

[Reviewed - July 2019]

Choose login from the blue top navigation bar. Add your membership number and password, next navigate to events.

1. Find conference listed on 'Events' within 'Education Courses' or follow this link
2. Select 'book your place' at the top of the page, or if you are logged out, this button will say 'log in to book'. Once logged in, go back to the page and click the 'book your place' button
3. You will need to tick the ‘Online Course Fee’ box, then click ‘Book Event’
4. The next page will detail our cancellation policy –tick to confirm you have read and understood the Cancellation and Refund policy
5. Once ticked, select ‘Confirm Event Booking’
6. Next you will be required to answer a few simple questions relation to how you heard about our event and dietary requirements also
7. You will then need to click ‘Continue to Payments Screen.’
8. You will be required to pay for the event you have chosen to attend using WorldPay to process your payment – select ‘Event payment using WorldPay

Please be aware that you will need to have your payment details to hand to prevent the webpage from timing out during this process. If an error appears stating that you have been provisionally booked on to our event, you will be required to contact our education team in order to make payment.

Once you have entered your payment details, you should expect to receive confirmation of your booking via email, with your sales receipt also. Please contact our office if you do not receive these within 1 day of booking.

If you experience any problems in booking your place online, please call our education team on 01604 684965.

Payment details are not saved on our system.

[Reviewed - July 2019]

In order to log in to our Physio First website as a non-member, you will be required to register as a ‘CSP visitor’, join here. Being a CSP visitor is a way for our non-members to gain limited access to our full education course list, articles and other important information.

By logging in as a CSP visitor, you will receive your own Physio First membership number and password which will allow you to log in to our website as a non-member.

To register as a CSP Visitor:

• You will need to complete an application form (see here) for your details to be recorded on our database so we can record your booking
• You will be required to enter your full contact details, HCPC and CSP number
  Please note that if you have not entered your HCPC or CSP numbers your application will be declined
• Once you have submitted your application to be a CSP visitor, our Office team will review the details within your application and will process this ensuring that you will receive your CSP visitor log in number and password in due course

To book a Physio First course as a CSP visitor:

1. You will need to go to our Physio First home page (http://www.physiofirst.org.uk/)
2. Click ‘Log in’ located top right hand corner with your CSP visitor details 
3. Log in using your Physio First membership number and password which has been emailed to you
4. Hover over 'Events' in the toolbar
5. Select the location you wish to go
6. Search for the course of your choice – all events are in date order
7. Click on the course title – the event details page will load
8. Select 'Book your place'
9. Then click 'Continue'
10. The next page will detail our cancellation policy –tick to confirm you have read and understood the Cancellation and Refund policy
11. Once ticked, select ‘Confirm Event Booking’
12. Next you will be required to answer a few simple questions relating to how you heard about our event and dietary requirements also. 
13. You will then need to click ‘Continue to Payments Screen.’
14. You will be required to pay for the event you have chosen to attend using WorldPay to process your payment – select ‘Event payment using WorldPay’.
15. Once you have entered your payment details, you should expect to receive confirmation of your booking via email, with your sales receipt also. Please contact our Physio First Office if you do not receive these within 1 day of booking

If you experience any problems in booking your place online, please call our Physio First Education Team on 01604 684965.

[Reviewed - January 2019]

Visit their website for information of the Foundation and the grants available.

[Reviewed - July 2019]

It takes approximately 15 minutes, depending on traffic conditions at the time of travel to get from Nottingham City Centre to The EMCC/Orchard Hotel as this is located just outside of the city.

Alternatively there are regular, direct train services from Nottingham Train Station to London Kings Cross and Manchester.

Domestic and international flights can be taken from nearby airports, East Midlands Airport (approximately 30 minutes away by car) and Birmingham International Airport (approximately 60 minutes away by car).

If travelling to East Midlands Airport from the EMCC, The Skylink Express buses connect this station with the airport every 30 minutes, seven days a week with a journey time of around 30 minutes, stopping right outside the station.  Alternatively the Nottingham Skylink operates up to every 20 minutes, seven days a week, with a journey time of around 55 minutes departing from Broadmarsh Bus Station, just 5 minutes walk from Nottingham Train Station.

If travelling to Birmingham Airport from the EMCC, Nottingham Train Station offers routes to Birmingham New Street, where you would need to change and pick up the train to the Birmingham Airport Train Station, approximately 15 minutes from the City Centre. Alternatively the airport is within easy reach via taxi for approximately £30.

If travelling by car, the best route for the EMCC is via junction 25 of the M1 if travelling from the south. Continue along the A52 in a easterly direction until you see signs for the University of Nottingham. Take the A6464 and turn left at the first roundabout.

Please note we no longer run the mini bus service to Nottingham City Centre. If you need transport to and from the EMCC to the city centre (approx. £10 per journey) there are a number of taxi companies you can contact:

Trent Cars Ltd: 0115 950 5050

Central Cars: 011 9762222

Cabline Taxis: 0115 9225226

For more information about our how to reach the venue, please visit our venue page.

[Reviewed - July 2019]

There are automatic doors into the EMCC and a ramp into the onsite Orchard Hotel which has a number of adapted rooms with walk-in showers on the ground floor.

The lecture theatre itself has tiered seating however the front row will be reserved for those unable to access the steps, of which there is ample seating above.

Our team will be on hand to assist with any queries on the day, however if you are attending conference and have any requirements our team should know about in advance, please contact 01604 684 965 so that the appropriate arrangements can be made to assist you.

[Reviewed - July 2019]

There will be five lectures taking place per day on both Friday and Saturday - your conference ticket will give you entry to all lectures and you can attend all lectures (as they do not cross over) or alternatively, just the ones you are most interested in.

If you choose not to attend a lecture, you can use this time to visit the large exhibition onsite, grab a coffee or discuss any queries with our team in the atrium who will be on hand throughout the weekend should you need anything.

Unfortunately we are unable to offer a reduced conference ticket for an individual lecture, however one day tickets are available for either Friday or Saturday with prices starting from only £165. Click here for more information on our programme or tickets.

[Reviewed - July 2019]

The multiple person discount can be used by both members and non-members for booking full conference (Friday and Saturday).

In order to receive this discount you will need to call 01604 684 965 or alternatively complete an online form and send this to education@physiofirst.org.uk.

What if there is more than three of us?

The discount is applicable to three people booking together only. The three people within the discount do not need to be colleagues of the same practice.

I am a member and want to book three associates who are not members, can I still have the discount?

Yes, Physio First will honour the online discounted rate for the member and the non-member bookings will be processed collectively with a 10% discount. The same applies for a non-member booking three members. All of those on the booking will either need to be all members or all non-members as unfortunately this cannot be a mixed discount.

Prices are as follows:

Yes.

During our education sub committee’s annual post-conference meeting in June 2018, we reviewed the findings of the project ‘to investigate and consider options for the Physio First conference for the future to include alternative venues and if considered cogent to produce a Project Plan to implement these changes to our 2020 conference.’

Within this project plan we had incorporated the feedback and requirements of our members, including investigating the feasibility of new locations such as Manchester, London and Birmingham.

Below is a small extract of the research undertaken by our team to consider other venues and compare the EMCC with others of the same calibre. After much investigation, including a review of the location, value for money, how well it met our criteria, and member feedback across multiple platforms, we concluded that the venue best suited for all of our requirements remained the East Midlands Conference Centre. For this reason, we will remain at the EMCC for 2019 and 2020 conference.

The EMCC enables us to deliver an annual conference with a quality onsite hotel, parking facilities (80% of 2018 conference delegates travelled to Nottingham by car), major travel links (motorways, nearby train station etc.), tiered theatre and exhibition space that has contributed to the success of our conferences for the last 14 years and we look forward to returning in 2019 with a new format.

[Reviewed - July 2019]

Our aim for our 2020 conference is to provide both electronic and hard copy notes however at this stage, this is completely dependent on our speakers' preferences. Physio First will do everything possible to make the notes available in as easy a process as possible.

With the introduction of GDPR, we give our speakers the option as to whether they would like their notes printed for inclusion within our delegate programme, or if they would like these to be distributed electronically. There are a number of factors that may sway the decisions of our speakers including copyrighting issues, deadlines and workloads. As we want to make their speaker contribution as simple as possible, we give them the option as to how they would like to provide their presentations for delegates and we will ask if they are happy to supply their presentations in both formats to suit all but we understand that this may not always be possible.

Hard copies

If our speakers are happy to provide hard copy notes, these will be supplied with your delegate programme when you register at conference and we will do our very best to make you aware of which presentations will be included, and which won't to allow you time to make arrangements for note taking on the day.

Electronic notes

Our speakers have a little bit more flexibility with providing their notes electronically and this is a good option should a speaker have a number of competing priorities at the time. The notes that will be distributed electronically will be sent to you via a link through one of our emails so please do make sure you are subscribed to our e-alerts and that our emails do not go through to your junk as you may miss this! With the link, we will also provide a guide explaining the process on how to download and print the notes should you wish to. We recommend if you are planning to access all notes electronically that you download these onto your laptop, tablet or phone prior to conference, to ensure this does not affect the speed of the WiFi.

2018 decision to go completely electronic

Our decision to move to electronic notes at conference 2018 was part of a much wider organisation goal to move towards more electronic processes. Not only does this help the environment, but can be fincancially sufficient, and more appealing to a larger audience as more people move to electronic based services.

Furthermore, our speakers were given the option as to whether they wanted to provide electronic notes and this was not a decision we were able to go against. This meant that we were unable to mass print their notes however delegates were able to do so for personal use providing they were not mass photocopied or redistributed to non-conference attendees in any way.

Any decisions made towards our central education programme or annual conferences will stem from decisions made by our education sub committee who are all volunteers and members of Physio First who want to bring the best updates and changes to our annual conference. The decision to move to electronic notes was based on the feedback received from 2017 conference delegates, where a number of people had mentioned their desire to access notes online. Other delegate suggestions had included a revamp of our Saturday night buffet (which was successfully altered in 2018 with the evening being a huge hit) and a change to the dates of conference (our 2019 event will take place across Friday-Saturday).

Following the evaluation of 2018 delegate feedback, our education sub committee agreed that providing both options would be the best approach to the notes, with a hope of moving to completely electronic for 2020 conference.

It is not out of character for Physio First to try new things and it is within our culture (revised by our exec in October 2017), to be more modern, positively disruptive and move with the digital age, which includes our new social media strategy to develop our online presence via Twitter and Facebook.

We appreciate that members may not agree with the changes made by Physio First however it is a learning process for us all, therefore any feedback is very welcome at education@physiofirst.org.uk. We hope to see you at our 2019 event.

[Reviewed - July 2019]