The London School of Sports Massage

MISSION SATATEMENT

Our mission is to establish a recognised and respected new category in modern musculoskeletal healthcare. One that safely and effectively treats people who are suffering with chronic musculoskeletal pain and minor injuries, using manual hands- on treatment techniques. Traditionally, this job was done by physiotherapists but gradually over the decades this has changed, particularly in recent years. The latest core curriculum for physiotherapy training now no longer includes any of the hands-on treatment techniques and it has become almost completely exercise based. There is nothing wrong with these exercise programs but it's not the same thing as a hands-on treatment. They work in different ways and help people in different ways. They can complement each other but they are not the same thing.

Of course, there are still many senior physiotherapists in practice who were trained to treat injuries with hands-on techniques. They are still treating their patients this way and it is a pleasure to see this. But as time goes on and the new generation without this training take over the profession, it will eventually disappear. The hands-on treatment techniques we use go back thousands of years and are just as effective today as they ever were. But even more so because over the last 40 years we have studied, developed and perfecting them, so we now teach and deliver them on a far higher clinical level than ever before.

But we don't just apply techniques to injuries. We don't treat injuries - we treat people with injuries. Even if two people have identical tissue damage and the same injury, everything else is different because no two people are the same. The way they respond to the injury, the way they respond to treatment, the way they rehabilitate, even the way the injury affects them emotionally are all different. And if someone suffers with chronic pain for some time it becomes more complex. If they have had knee pain for a few months they will compensate for this in other ways and it is no longer just a knee problem. So, we don’t follow routines to treat local injuries because we must also consider the wider issues. No two injuries are ever the same and that is why we focus on the needs of the client rather than the local site of their injury.

Everyone suffers with chronic musculoskeletal pain or minor injuries at some time in their lives and they can all benefit from the hands-on treatments we train our therapist to deliver, so the market for this level of care is truly immense. And as AI and robotics take over more of our lives, the value of having a human therapist using hands-on treatment to provide individual care will become even more greatly valued in the future. But no public healthcare profession is providing this service anymore so it is now down to us. We cannot let these highly effective therapeutic skills die out. We have been developing these skills along with our training through 40 years of experience. The therapists we train can and do have stimulating and rewarding lifetime careers from the training we provide. Our mission is to build this into a well- recognised therapy with potentially thousands of professional therapists making their living by helping all people across the country who need it.

To become part of this mission and have a stimulating and rewarding career in musculoskeletal healthcare, you have to train with us because no other training centre is doing what we do.