PARLIAMENTARY WRITTEN QUESTION
Physiotherapy: Pain (6 July 2020)

To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, what assessment he has made of the effectiveness of the treatment of soft tissue therapists for patients in pain when no other solution is available.

Asked by:
Esther McVey (Conservative)

No specific assessment of soft tissue therapy for patients in pain, when no other solution is available, has been made. However, the National Institute for Health and Care Excellence guideline ‘Low back pain and sciatica in over 16s: assessment and management’, published in 2016, sets out that clinicians should consider “manual therapy (spinal manipulation, mobilisation or soft tissue techniques such as massage) for managing low back pain with or without sciatica, but only as part of a treatment package including exercise, with or without psychological therapy”.

Answered by:
Helen Whately (Conservative)
22 July 2020