As part of the organisational reform of the National Health Service (SNS), namely the expansion of the Local Health Units (ULS), the Order of Physiotherapists organised a working meeting with physiotherapists who are coordinators in SNS institutions on 22 January.
At the meeting, chaired by President António Lopes and attended by the Board's Vice-Presidents, Nuno Cordeiro and Conceição Bettencourt, and Member Fátima Domingues, the Order's efforts to defend the principle of the need to create physiotherapy services and units in the NHS, with an organisational and operational model similar to the one already being implemented for other health professions, such as psychologists and nutritionists, were noted.
Repeating the position it has presented to the Minister of Health and the Executive Director of the SNS, the Order of Physiotherapists believes that the Local Health Units should be reorganised with Physiotherapy Services and Units, as a guarantee of the transversality that Physiotherapy care should have in the National Health Service, with a strong commitment to its integration and direct intervention in the management of resources with a direct impact on the health of the citizen/user, since physiotherapists have the skills to intervene both in primary health care and in the community, as well as in hospitals.
The positions expressed by the physiotherapists who act as coordinators were noted and their fundamental role emphasised, in order to help safeguard the accessibility of users to the care provided by physiotherapists (a window of opportunity for achieving results); the differentiation of existing responses, particularly within the scope of primary healthcare; the autonomy and quality of the services provided by physiotherapists; the profitability of existing resources and the allocation of care.
For its part, the Board of the Order stressed that it will continue to defend the creation and integration of Physiotherapy Services and Units, which will contribute to the qualification of the NHS response and to the increase of articulation between teams of health professionals, with the citizen/user at the centre of the system.
With a view to monitoring this process of reorganising the NHS, scheduling future meetings to listen to colleagues in the field and registering physiotherapists who have not yet been identified as coordinators by the Order, permanent contact is available at the following address: rh@ordemdosfisioterapeutas.pt