King's College London

Competency frameworks set out the expertise and knowledge that are relevant for different health and care professions. This helps health and care professionals acquire appropriate skills and ultimately ensures that patients receive high-quality care. Due to the lack of competency framework for physiotherapy practices in the UK critical care setting, physiotherapists have been following local requirements specific to their place of work. Here, Claire Bradley, Charles Reilly and colleagues develop a set of critical care competencies for physiotherapists working across three NHS Foundation Trusts within King’s Health Partners. They conduct a review of existing literature and local guidance to identify relevant skills for critical care physiotherapists. By consulting with lead physiotherapists in the partnership, they agree on the key skills that should be included and use this information to draft a novel competency framework called the ‘Kings Health Partners Physiotherapy Critical Care PROSPECTS (PROfession SPecific Excpectations, CompeTencies and Skills) Framework’. They present this framework to focus groups formed of physiotherapists in the partnership who have worked in critical care within the past two years, and they take their feedback on board to further refine the framework. The team then share the finalised competency framework with physiotherapy staff across the partnership and seek their feedback via a survey. Most respondents feel that the framework would benefit patient care (80%), safety (89%), and staff development (82%).

Overall, this work is expected to have a significant impact on clinical practice at King’s Health Partners by improving the consistency and quality of care. “By supporting equitable practice and training opportunities across King’s Health Partners NHS Trusts and partner sites, the framework aims to promote integrated and aligned working practices,” explained Dr Charles Reilly, an author on the study. “The next step will involve piloting the framework in real-world settings to validate its feasibility and effectiveness.”

Charles is a Consultant Respiratory Physiotherapist, an NIHR Advanced Clinical Academic Fellow at King’s College Hospital, and a Reader in Respiratory Care & Health Services Research (Adjunct) at the Cicely Saunders Institute, King’s College London. “A key part of my role in this project was to provide academic support and guidance around the research methodology, data analysis, and publication writing,” Charles explained. “However, this was a truly collaborative effort, led by the critical care physiotherapists authors the paper. Their commitment to improving physiotherapy care for patients in critical care was the driving force behind the success of this work. This publication exemplifies the power of teamwork and demonstrates how clinical–academic integration can enhance the quality of care we deliver to patients.”

Acknowledgement:
This project was funded by the King’s Health Partners Cardiovascular and Respiratory Partnership Programme, following a competitive clinical academic innovation funding process.

‘Developing a cross-organisational physiotherapy-specific critical care competency framework to enable collaborative working: an overview of the integration journey across an academic health science centre’ (Bradley et al.) (DOI: 10.1186/s12913-025-12912-5) was published in BMC Health Services Research).