Case study: Physiotherapy Access to Continuing Education

Abstract

Physiotherapy is a practical profession where the term ‘hands-on’ has a literal meaning. It follows that physiotherapy education has always been firmly rooted in practice. PACE, or Physiotherapy Access to Continuing Education, is a pioneering scheme for post-registration study and professional development that subscribes fully to the principle of practice-centred education. Yet its introduction in 1990 by the Chartered Society of Physiotherapy and subsequent development in collaboration with the University of Greenwich have been aimed as much to remedy the historical weaknesses of practice-based education in the post-registration arena as to build on its strengths.

This case study illustrates a rapid national transition in which a non-linear open curriculum structure is applied to meet local clinical needs. In this context the orthodox concept of course coherence is replaced by student-centred coherence worked through a mechanism of ‘statements of intent’.