Treat Your Business

147 How Student Placements Can Solve Your Clinic’s Recruitment Crisis: Practical Strategies with Carys Roberts

• Katie Bell / Carys Roberts • Season 1 • Episode 147

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Welcome
Welcome back to the Treat Your Business podcast! This week, I’m diving into the recruitment crisis we’re all feeling in the clinical world – but I’m not just here to moan, I’m here to shine a light on the opportunities as well. I’m joined by the fabulous Carys Roberts from Swan Physio and Cygnet, who’s back by popular demand. We’re unpacking how student placements can transform not only your clinic but also the careers of the next generation of clinicians. Trust me, if you’re overwhelmed with recruitment or just fancy a fresh approach, you’ll want to listen in!

Episode Summary
In this episode, we get real about the challenges facing clinic owners – from the lack of hands-on experience in new grads to the ever-changing employment rights. Carys shares her journey from juggling five jobs to running a thriving, multidisciplinary clinic and supporting student placements for over 15 years. We talk through how bringing students into your business (yes, funded placements!) isn’t just about giving back – it’s a strategic move to help you grow, recruit confidently, and future-proof your clinic. Expect practical tips, a few laughs, and honest chat about what actually works in the real world.

Key Takeaways
✨ There’s a recruitment challenge, but also a huge opportunity if you’re open to student placements
✨ Funded placements can be a game-changer for your business – you get to “try before you buy”
✨ Building the right processes and onboarding is crucial for success (yes, Carys is the spreadsheet queen!)
✨ Student placements aren’t just for physio clinics – there are options for everyone
✨ It’s all about finding the right fit: attitude and values matter more than clinical skills at first
✨ Students can add value in surprising ways – from running classes to bringing fresh ideas
✨ Start the conversation now, even if you’re not ready yet – it takes time to build the right infrastructure
✨ You’re not alone: bespoke support and resources are available to help you every step of the way

Resources & Links
🔗 Find out more about Carys and student placements at swanphysio.co.uk/s

Ready to take action?
If you’re feeling the recruitment pinch or just want to future-proof your clinic, don’t wait – reach out, start the conversation, and see how student placements could work for you. You might just find your next superstar!

Thanks for tuning in – as always, if you loved this episode, let me know, share it with your fellow clinic owners, and keep an eye out for more practical tips and real talk in

Treat Your Business podcast is proudly sponsored by MBST, the groundbreaking technology revolutionising recovery and rehabilitation. Offering a non-invasive, drug-free solution for musculoskeletal conditions and nerve injuries, MBST works at a cellular level to stimulate regeneration. Expand your services and deliver long-term patient improvements without increasing your workload.

Learn more at mbstmedical.co.uk. 

Treat Your Business EP147

[00:00:00] Katie Bell: This will come as no shock, but we are in a recruitment crisis. It is not the lack of physios in particular. I know osteopaths have a different challenge in that there isn't a whole lot of you being qualifying right now. But in terms of physio, there is still a huge amount of physios coming out into the clinical world with no clinical experience or, jobs for them. And this kind of feels like it's done like a whole, when I qualified too many years ago to remember now, there was a huge crisis in bum five options. And it, what we weren't really looking at, the private sector is a place to go next. It was funded courses, so we went into the NHS.

[00:00:41] Things have changed. We have a recruitment challenge, but we also have a huge opportunity. So I am. Really excited to welcome Carys Roberts back from Swan Physio and Cygnet. She has both businesses because she's a superstar and she's gonna be talking to us. She's been on the podcast before and I urge you to go and listen to her first episode.

[00:01:01] But she's gonna be talking to us about this kind of student to superstar service, how placements can transform careers and clinics. And we're gonna really explore how student placements can be. A really powerful tool for not only developing confident, capable clinicians, but also helping private practices grow really sustainably, particularly with lots of changes to the employment rights that we are seeing over the coming months.

[00:01:28] And to help with the opportunity that we have where we need people in our businesses. How can we do that in a sustainable way with processes, with policies, with things in the background that is gonna make this a really robust way of bringing these students through from student to nearly qualified to them working and being really efficient.

[00:01:54] High performing staff members. Staff members. So let's welcome Carys to this week's episode.

[00:01:59] Welcome to the Treat Your Business podcast with Katie Bell. I'm Katie, and this is the place to learn the strategies, tactics, tools and mindset needed to build your clinical studio into a business that gives you the time, money, energy, and fulfillment you want and deserve. My team and I work every day with overwhelmed and exhausted clinic owners like you to shift them from a business.

[00:02:21] There is a huge time and energy drain and is not giving them the income they want to confident clinic owners that are making money, saving money, and getting time back in their lives. So if this sounds like something you want, let's dive in.

[00:02:36] Today's episode is sponsored by Jane, a clinic management software and EMR. The Jane team knows that when your workday is spent providing care to your patients or your clients, it can feel like there aren't enough hours in the day for the rest of your admin tasks. This can mean scheduling appointments become.

[00:02:55] The hours tasks turning what should be restful evenings into extra long work days. That's why Jane has designed user-friendly online bookings. You can give your patients freedom to book their appointments at their own convenience. Patients can also manage their appointments, fill out intake forms, and enable SMS and email reminders.

[00:03:13] From their secure online portal, which saves you from having to do it manually to see how Jane can help you reclaim your evenings and weekends. Head to the link in the show notes to book a personalized demo. Or if you're ready to get started, you can use the code Thrive one mo at the time of sign up for a one month grace period.

[00:03:30] Apply to your new account.

[00:03:34] Hello Carys. Welcome to the Treat Your Business Podcast. 

[00:03:38] Carys Roberts: Nice to see you again. Nice to be on again. Thanks Katie. Thanks for having me back. 

[00:03:43] Katie Bell: You are so welcome. You were very popular last time. So back, I should say back with popular demand. Sorry. Does that sound good? Yeah. 

[00:03:50] Carys Roberts: Yeah. Let's go with that one actually.

[00:03:52] Katie Bell: Okay. We'll go with that one. Carys, . First of all, I'm jumping ahead because people might not listen to our first episode. If they haven't, you need to go back and listen to that Carys, tell everybody who you are, what you do and who you work with. 

[00:04:02] Carys Roberts: So my name's Carys Roberts. I'm a physio by background.

[00:04:06] Varied career history of that typical NHS start. Bit of sport, bit of private bit of everything. I think I had five jobs at one point, I have my own clinic based near Stoke on Trent, so bang in the middle of the country. And, we've got a physio clinic, Pilates studio, gym, we're very multidisciplinary, which is great.

[00:04:27] But we're also a teaching practice and I've been supporting student placements throughout that whole time. Kind of 15 years or so since I've worked in sports and various other things. So what I now do. Is support other businesses to take on the student placements within their own clinics as well.

[00:04:46] 'cause I've found that it's really helped with my business growth as well as staffing, staff development, recruitment, everything. So I'm now doing clinical work, running my clinic, but also helping other clinics like yourself, Katie you do your own bit and then you're helping others to make better businesses out of their own clinics as well. 

[00:05:08] Katie Bell: Yeah. Nice. So Cygnets was born as a out of, was it born out of a gap for you or like a passion that you loved working with students and then thought, how can I roll this out to other businesses? Or did you see a recruitment challenge or what was it?

[00:05:27] Carys Roberts: I think all of the above. Yeah. Does that sound like a top out? All of the above. So I've always been really passionate with the student teaching when I graduated, which is over 16 years ago now. You Thank you. Thank you. Even filters that we've talked. Yeah. Even without a filter, it's still, 

[00:05:50] Katie Bell: still got it.

[00:05:53] Carys Roberts: Yeah, there was a massive job crisis. Yeah. And we were all graduating. So it was when the physio courses were funded, there was an excess of an NHS funded physios graduating, and I think 50% of my year group actually went into physio. Yeah. So when I graduated, me being me, always got a plan, always got a plan B, always got a plan cd, my.

[00:06:19] I said, I'm gonna give it 12 months because I'm gonna graduate. And then in 12 months time, there's gonna be new graduates coming onto the market and people are probably gonna want them rather than somebody that maybe hasn't worked for 12 months. Yeah, they're fresh. I'll give it 12 months if I can't get a physio job in that time.

[00:06:36] I'll go and do my PGCE and I'll become a PE teacher with biology on the side. 'cause that seems Wow. A very natural extension of physio. Why not? So it had always kinda been my backup plan to be a teacher. And come from a my, my dad was a teacher, so it put me off suitably from being a teacher, but that was still the backup plan.

[00:06:57] Yeah. So I think I'd always had that idea of teaching in my mind and yeah, when I was at uni, the placement options were extremely limited. I, outside of the NHS offering I'm guessing it'll be the same for many of the listeners and yourself as well, Casey. Absolutely. I was somebody that did want to go and work in the NHS, and I loved every single specialty.

[00:07:20] I just lapped it up. But equally, I was interested in peds sports and the private sector, and they were just, I think there were a couple of opportunities, but they weren't. Widely available to everybody. 

[00:07:34] Katie Bell: Sure. 

[00:07:34] Carys Roberts: So when I graduated and I got my five jobs, so didn't not get the one, so that was good.

[00:07:40] Stayed in physio. One of the things I did when I was at Stoke City Football Club was run an internship. So I did my first year there flying bad seat with my pants. I was a new graduate and because I'd had no sports experience, I was even head of medical. At the Girls Academy with no prior sports experience other than my own coaching, playing of hockey, not even the same sport, wow. So I really did fly by the seat of my pants, and I thought there's an opportunity here actually to take students through, and they wouldn't do it as a full placement. And I didn't really want it as a six week placement. 'cause that doesn't give you the full picture. 

[00:08:21] Katie Bell: Yeah. So I 

[00:08:22] Carys Roberts: ran, I set up, had to design a budget, do all of the planning timetabling.

[00:08:27] I run an in-service training program. We got the students through their pitch side qualifications. We had a whole system. As you can imagine, again, Katie. Yeah, absolutely. Place. And from that, we ran that for many seasons and that was where we recruited our future staff from. It's where they could see, everyone thinks it's really glamorous working in sports.

[00:08:51] We all know it isn't. It is standing at the side of a pit, a pitch, getting piss whack through, basically waiting. Something to happen and hoping that it doesn't. Yeah. And for me, dealing with parents at academy level of various things. So it worked really well for many years. And also it allowed me to get to know some of the uni processes, even though it was a voluntary thing outside of the official placements.

[00:09:15] And it just went from there. Really? Yeah. I Carysd on with the passion for it. My senior physio at my clinic was my first student through that internship, Natalie, big shout out to Natalie. And then when I got to the point with Swan, when I'd set up Swan, where I was thinking this is more than just me now.

[00:09:35] I went down, I thought let's start offering student placement. That's a great way for me to keep on my toes. It's a great way for me to look at recruitment. Yeah. And I had no clue that there was any funding available. I just did it because I thought it was the right thing to do to give people those opportunities.

[00:09:51] It suited my business needs. It ticked a lot of boxes. And then I think it was about 10 months later, the union went, do you want to invoices now? And I won't invoice you for what? I thought, what there's funding and so I've totally taken some more at that point, I'm thinking, okay, yeah, and it's just rolled on from there.

[00:10:10] And you speak to other people and there's still a gap. The private, independent, voluntary sports sector. Has got better reputa representation in placements. It has improved, which is amazing to see, but there's still probably not enough variety. 

[00:10:31] Katie Bell: Yeah. 

[00:10:32] Carys Roberts: So I'm really passionate about giving students those opportunities and challenging their thinking as well of what private practice actually is.

[00:10:42] Katie Bell: Yeah. 

[00:10:43] Carys Roberts: As well as helping other businesses with what is, I think a national recruitment shortage now within sector. 

[00:10:51] Katie Bell: Absolutely. Carys. So I was just gonna reflect on a conversation we had yesterday on our q and a with some of our members, and it is we talk about recruitment 70% of the time, if it's not recruitment.

[00:11:02] We're talking about how we lead team and how we manage better and how we deal with all the issues, all that kind of stuff. But one of the things we were talking about was about bringing newly qualified in. And the challenge for a clinic owner when you are super busy, you've got no time. You just need somebody to come in and get on with the fucking job and be great and you haven't got time to teach them where the shoulder is and the elbow and the hand because it now appears that lots of needle qualified that haven't had any clinical experience in our world aren't getting hands on.

[00:11:36] They're not getting that observation time. They're not getting to see what really it is like being a physio. So we've got these. Group of people that have been churned out of universities that we then, as clinic owners are going we can't touch you because you are just too much work and we're time poor.

[00:11:54] We're money poor, we're energy poor, the majority of US clinic owners, so we just go, oh no, I'm just gonna look for a band six or a band seven level. And it's not until you have adequate infrastructure in your clinic that you could then possibly open up that opportunity. 'cause you've got the layers in the team that can help you as the clinic owner support them through their learning journey.

[00:12:14] We talked yesterday about this big supply and demand shift in that and we must have qualified really at similar times Carys 'cause I remember coming out and there was no literally no band five jobs. They'd all been de banded from seven to sixes. Fives couldn't get up to six. So we were just stagnated and they were churning out 120 students per university.

[00:12:35] With no jobs and I ended up going to work, weirdly enough, a bit like you into teaching. I went to work to, for the university for a year on a year's placement that they put together to help with the job shortage. Yeah. And I thought, I'll give it a year if I can't get a job, job or whatever. And then I went and got five jobs.

[00:12:52] Like you, physio at the sport, at the rugby club. I was the netball coach, I was the, clinician. Oh you name it, I was doing it. And that really helped me get a standing start. 'cause I went and got private work but I was fucking ballsy. Carys like you, I ain't got a clue what was doing.

[00:13:07] I was flying by the seat of pants. Yeah. I was just, I was probably faking it until I was making it in that I'd got some tenacity about me and I'd got, I thought, I'm just gonna put myself out there like you would've done. But a lot of un qualified don't always have that same tenacity. And we talked yesterday about where is the opportunity here, rather than us all private practitioners going, oh no, we can't deal with new qualified.

[00:13:32] They're no good. They're not serving us well enough. Like we can't just keep turning a blind eye to the massive recruitment challenge we've got. When we've got the physios coming through, they're there, but we're now saying, oh, they're not for us enough. It made me think coming. I was like, oh, I've got this podcast recording.

[00:13:50] with Carys, we can talk about this because. The opportunity for me is that if we were more open to student placements that are funded, who even knew that could work with somebody like you, who basically tells us exactly what we need to do and how we need to do it. And you are the queen of a spreadsheet. I've never seen anything, anybody as organized as you.

[00:14:10] You blow my mind when I spend time with you. I'm like, fuck, I wish I could be more like Carys. Color coordinated, stationary. You've got everything organized on your desk. When I meet you, you just, you're just a legend. But you take that, you stick it into somebody's business. You help them bring students through, don't you?

[00:14:29] That framework, could it not then be used to more confidently and competently bring newly qualified through, because you've already been doing it. 

[00:14:38] Carys Roberts: I think that's it is my my clinic. I've moved purely from recruiting from my placements for the last few years. 

[00:14:46] Katie Bell: Wow. 

[00:14:47] Carys Roberts: There's been the odd one. I haven't for various reasons.

[00:14:52] And it never quite works out as well as the ones that we've had through placement, right? Because we really tough on placement. We expect high standards. We expect them to do the work. We expect them to treat our clients with respect, get involved, get into the whole philosophy, and then at the end of it, they may decide that our approach isn't for them.

[00:15:12] That's absolutely fine. That's a valuable learning kind of experience. 

[00:15:16] Katie Bell: Yeah. 

[00:15:16] Carys Roberts: But equally, I've pushed them. I can see if they can cope with us. Because we are not gonna teach 'em everything in a six or eight week placement. They're gonna develop loads in that time, but we're not gonna be able to teach 'em everything.

[00:15:28] It's more about identifying can we work with that person? Yeah. And I've, I had it a few years ago. I got approached by Band seven Senior MSK clinician in the hospital. Oh, brilliant. I just want to not lose my hands on skills. Can I come to you for to work one evening a week. She lasted two weeks. And said, I can't keep up with your level of clinical reasoning, and I'm embarrassed that I'm being shown up by, newly qualified staff.

[00:15:55] Katie Bell: Wow.

[00:15:55] Carys Roberts: Who are and she was right. She just, she was so far off what we required. 

[00:16:01] Katie Bell: Yeah. 

[00:16:02] Carys Roberts: And actually the fresh moldable kind of new grad students, and they do work for me as students, physio assistants. We have a whole training process package. As all your Thrive customers will know.

[00:16:16] You've gotta have those processes in place. Yeah. You've gotta have everything organized. Documented, onboarding processes have to be exactly where they need to be. But it does give you that little bit more insight by just having them try before you buy for six weeks. And there's some great recruitment companies out there, Katie we know the Yeah.

[00:16:37] Kind of a lot of them. And that is a great option if you need something specific. More specialized. 

[00:16:43] Katie Bell: Yeah. 

[00:16:43] Carys Roberts: But there is a cost involved. 

[00:16:45] Katie Bell: Yeah. 

[00:16:45] Carys Roberts: So to me, actually, I think it works for our clinic 'cause we've built the infrastructure six, one, half dozen of the other, you're never gonna have the infrastructure.

[00:16:55] Before you do it. If you don't, just get on and do it as well. But like I said, I brought Natalie through and with her, we've developed this, but also when I, it was just a bit more me in clinic while she was still having kids on the NHS before she came to me first. Full time. I made sure I took that time out of my business to work on that infrastructure, to develop us as a training practice when I thought this is the way we want to go.

[00:17:24] And then we've worked on the volume, we've worked on the kind of processes and refining that since, but everything we put in on a sign facilitated placement gets You started with that. And we're always reviewing it. So the next academic year, we're reviewing some of the resources we're going okay, where are some of the gaps?

[00:17:43] And a lot of it is improving student onboarding within the organization as well as clinical competency, checklists, things like that. So getting that onboarding started while they're still students. While they're still with you on a placement, so that then it's in place to just keep going with it if you decide to recruit them afterwards.

[00:18:07] Yeah. And what is so lovely this year in the providers that are supported, they even new providers have recruited from their placements. Wow. Which. Feels amazing, because it's one thing me saying it will work. Yeah. It's nothing. A busy business owner that was really unsure of having a student, having their first student and then going, yeah, we want to keep you, come work for us.

[00:18:30] Amazing. That's great. To me 

[00:18:33] Katie Bell: It's incredible car because HR is a massive big buzzword that we're all talking about, and we've got these 26 new. Employment rights in the new employment bill. And there was some stat given to me the other day by, at the head of HR in a big firm, which was like, employees have over a hundred rights and employers have zero.

[00:18:57] And I was like, this just stinks of the UK doesn't it? That's how we run our country. But one of the big things that I, we know is changing is that employees will have full employment rights from day one rather than after two years. And so a lot of our clinic owners panicking about this, how, what's that gonna look like?

[00:19:15] How are we protected? I said, there's still loads of way you can load loads of ways to protect yourself here. But one of the things that it made me think about this was that if you are tr trying before you're buying in a student placement, you have the opportunity to we have a 12 step recruitment process that really works and it's.

[00:19:34] Very values led. It's very, you know what? You could have true strengths, not whether you can assess a shoulder and a knee and all that shit, because we can teach you that, but actually who you are as a person, and can we, as you said, can we work with you? Are you somebody we want in our business?

[00:19:51] And so this student option is that, isn't it just on an extended period. It's I can really get to know you and then we can develop you. And when I say no cost to the business, of course is the cost. But you are also being funded for it. You are being paid to have them. Yeah. And you've got this brilliant ability to then say, no, that's it, we're done.

[00:20:12] And end off, or actually do you want a job? And the chances of it not working out then are really slim. 'cause you've done sort of six to eight weeks of testing with them. 

[00:20:22] Carys Roberts: That testing can be extended. Obviously we are not here to talk HR law or anything like that. No. I tend to say while they're still students, they need flexi contracts.

[00:20:30] Yeah. They need to be self-employed so they can pick up and drop shifts around placements, exams, what have you. But also that extends the time period. We've gotta work on that. Yeah. And then we look at employment contracts once. Things are a little bit, so you just extend your try before you buy Yeah.

[00:20:50] A little bit longer. Yeah. But they want that. However, on graduation, and I know you used to talk about self-employed versus employed. More and more people want those employed contracts. They do gotta be even more sure that we are getting the right people Yeah. And doing things in the right way.

[00:21:09] Katie Bell: Yeah. 

[00:21:09] Carys Roberts: And it's interesting what you say about the, your 12 step. Program and it's values driven, like you say, we can, I can teach them the clinical side of things. Yeah. And we will support them and all the rest of it. But if they can't, they don't have the right attitude with our patient demographic, we're not gonna get anywhere.

[00:21:27] No. And what we do with it, one of the resources that we supply to clinics as part of the sickness placement is what we call an evidence workbook. Which is not, it sounds a bit primary school like, oh, you call in bits. No it's not that. It's so the students can show working outside of, if they freeze when they're asked a question in front of a patient.

[00:21:48] But also it's getting 'em started in the habit of a professional portfolio in line with HCP standards. We all need to be keeping those records and we have pre-placement tasks. So one we can see, have they actually looked at anything before they're coming to us on day one? Yeah. And also they tend to be in tables.

[00:22:06] So we'll have, what do you think the role of the receptionist is in the clinic? What are your thoughts on these treatment modalities? And then the other columns go through on placement learning. What they then learn to follow that up. And some students may come in and go, I know all of this and it's pretty spot on.

[00:22:23] And I'm like, okay, fair enough. Maybe you've worked in the clinic, you've got a good understanding. But what I love to see is what they think when they first start. And then that thought process changing and then reflecting on that. 'cause actually I'd much rather work with somebody that can have their mind that's more open-minded.

[00:22:42] Katie Bell: Yeah. 

[00:22:43] Carys Roberts: We integrate those principles, but it has, it's worked brilliantly for our clinic at Swan and it also means that my team are happy to have students because they've been, those students and for me, they've been those students more recently than me. So a lot of ways they're far better educators than I'm, I bring the experience, but actually.

[00:23:07] They've had their feet on the ground. So again, the, it just builds and builds, but you've just gotta take that jump to put the infrastructure in to start with. 

[00:23:16] Katie Bell: So if people are like, actually this might solve a massive recruitment challenge for me. If I got onto this now and I started doing things actively, now, this could really give me some throughput of staff as I grow my clinic in X amount of months, years, whatever.

[00:23:35] I've got a robust process behind it all. What do people need to do next? If they're thinking this is actually. Opened my eyes up to a way of doing it that I had not thought about. Love the fact that, but you talked about like Band four training programs and things. I've got loads of clients who we talk about how can we get that person in your business at a slightly lower cost, get them trained, and then we bring them, then we can move them into your band.

[00:23:57] Five roles. Yeah. So what do they need to do? Do they speak to you? Do they reach out to the university? Where do they go next? 

[00:24:04] Carys Roberts: They've got a few different options. Okay. For any physio first members out there, we put a library of resources together so they can download some of the resources that I've already mentioned, tweak them to make them their own.

[00:24:17] And obviously they can have a, a chat to me as part of their membership. 

[00:24:22] Katie Bell: Yeah. 

[00:24:22] Carys Roberts: But equally, non physio affairs members or even non physio companies, there are options out there for everybody with these processes. Wow. 

[00:24:31] Katie Bell: Okay. 

[00:24:32] Carys Roberts: The first port of call is to reach out and book a, a quick call now consultation with me.

[00:24:38] We can see where you currently at, see what, where you might need to go. And also I've, I'm just onboarding some new clinics ahead of next academic year. I spoke to six, eight months ago that we're starting their growth cycle. And it wasn't, we spoke, they were like, I want to do this, but I meant, I said, don't park it for six months.

[00:24:58] As you're going through that growth period. Perfect timing. Think of this, and this. Yeah. Whilst you're doing that, yeah. Look at these resources. Listen to Katie's podcast, do all of this. And now we're in a really strong position to get them launched by September, so right. It's not a quick process.

[00:25:18] I think I'm extending the process. The more I do this with providers and timing is always everything. There's no point doing it if you're not gonna do it properly. Yeah. But just because you're not necessarily at that stage now doesn't mean it's not worth having a conversation. 'cause you're never gonna get to that stage.

[00:25:35] You might put the wrong things in place because you think that's how it needs to be done and it isn't. Yeah. Yeah. So there's lots of nuances. I think people are welcome to approach their universities, but some unis are more receptive to private sector discussions than others.

[00:25:54] Unfortunately, there is quite a big divide in that which is a shame. But also they are not there to do. The process is they just want to go, can you take four students on these dates, yes or no? And we'll support you through the assessment process, but not a lot else around that, unfortunately.

[00:26:14] Okay. 

[00:26:15] Katie Bell: Okay. And then, and that's when I guess we all feel like, oh God, no. You wouldn't even know where to start. Processes that haven't got in place, haven't got e even, when you look at onboarding a new member of staff the amount of time I look at clinic processes for onboarding staff members and I'm like, what where is any of this?

[00:26:33] And they've not got any of it. We've not got any values based stuff. We've not got any plan of where we're going. We don't know co clear competencies that we need to see. Therapist expectations, documentation. The more clear you can be with your team, the better they will perform and the quicker you will highlight when they're not performing and you can do things about it.

[00:26:54] Yeah. But and that process needs to happen whether you are taking a student or taking an actual paid member of staff. Absolutely. So it's even just starting that conversation with you now would help them start to put the right things in place. Yeah. And takes when times, it takes, 

[00:27:11] Carys Roberts: If they do decide to be like a s pro provider it takes time for me and my team to build those bespoke resources for them because it's unique to each clinic. 

[00:27:22] Katie Bell: Wow. Okay. '

[00:27:23] Carys Roberts: cause it, it really does reflect their values. It reflects how they want to what works for them. As well. 'cause what works for one clinic doesn't necessarily work for one. What works for one provider that's had some students before?

[00:27:38] Not very often versus who has had them for a while. There's loads of different variables and that's where you need that kind of bespoke advice and bespoke resources really.

[00:27:50] Katie Bell: And I think if people want to know more car about the financial side of it, I'm gonna refer them back to our previous podcast.

[00:27:57] Yes. Because we talked a lot, didn't we, about the financial aspects of having students and how it can really transform. Some of the metrics in e clinic. 

[00:28:08] Carys Roberts: Yeah, it can, and the next phase is more student led services, yeah. We've had some real success with that. In the last six months in our rehab gym, chair based Pilates classes, excise reviews, or loads of different things that.

[00:28:22] Allows students to be that little bit more autonomous, but with things that are a little bit more familiar to them, but the clients need that time with them. So there's loads of scope for business developments as well as the additional revenue generation as well. 

[00:28:38] Katie Bell: So what I'm hearing here, Carys, is you can create additional revenue.

[00:28:43] A getting funding from the, you need to have these people. It could create your, it can solve a lot of your recruitment challenges. It can create huge opportunity in your business from a what different things we could get these students doing that we might not have had the time, capacity, space to do that.

[00:29:03] These students could step in and lots of people are. And bringing in services where a TA or a an assistant actually can run a lot of the machine set up. They're getting the patients onto the machine or, whatever it is. So there's lots of ways that we can absorb the student in and make even more money from them as a result of their abilities and their services.

[00:29:25] Carys Roberts: Be surprised the ideas that they come up with. Yeah. The group of students we've got at the moment did the most amazing video on a new circuit class that they're launching the strength training. And for women, they look locally. There wasn't a lot out there. So we're, we are looking at developing that and it really showcased their skillset in a different way than we'd seen in more traditional, what muscle do you think I'm on? What supplies that? All of, all that kind of side of things. And I thought you've really understood the demographic here. This is brilliant.

[00:29:58] And it was really nice to see that development. And I couldn't have done a better job. That's incredible. They did a better job than I could have done at that. That's yeah, it's just, it is a win-win. It does, there are some pitfalls definitely in terms of like with anything, management of people is not simple.

[00:30:17] But you have your processes, you have your onboarding, you have all those things in place, and there's not a lot more else you can do. 

[00:30:24] Katie Bell: Yeah. Amazing. Carys. I'm gonna make sure the links are in the show notes, but just give them the website that they need to go to or where they need to go to book their call with you.

[00:30:33] Carys Roberts: Yeah, so the best way to look at the information and how we work as s is via our website, which is www.swampphysio.co uk slash s. And then that takes you to information about work experience, as well as the higher education opportunities, and also information about sports therapy. Or other placements as well as the physio placements.

[00:31:00] So brilliant. I've recruited a sports therapist from a placement we did last summer. Wow. With them, and they self-funded. But they said I paid you money, but I've got a job. So I'm really happy and I'm happy. So all is good. 

[00:31:14] Katie Bell: That is amazing. Carys, you've been a delight as always. We could just talk forever and ever about it.

[00:31:19] Good. We can get an our soapbox about all sorts, so I will definitely ask you back again to get an our soapbox about something else. Thank you. Listeners, thank you Carys, for your time and I look forward to our next episode together. 

[00:31:31] Carys Roberts: Thanks.

[00:31:32]

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