.

ACPIN is spearheaded by an executive commitee of enthusiastic volunteers who all work in the field of physiotherapy and neurology, either as clinicians, in education or research.

The Executive committee is made up of 14 representatives from across the UK. Members are elected for a four to six year term at the Annual General Meeting by the membership. The Chair is elected from within the Executive Committee.

The Executive Committee meets three times a year and an additional three meetings are held with a representative from each region and together this group forms the National Committee. Within the National Committee there are four subgroups and their latest reports to November 2007 are as follows.

The Communication/events subgroup

The former sub groups joined together during the last meeting. The Residential Conference in March 2008 was briefly discussed and it was confirmed that two sponsors would be attending each day.

CSP congress 2008 was discussed but this is very capably being organised by Siobhan MacAuley and the discussion was indeed brief.

Most of the discussions involved the planning of the National ACPIN Study day in March 2009. A loose working title and location was decided upon with members to suggest speakers in time for the next meeting. We are investigating the option of the study day being hosted in Leeds and the title to involve the upper limb. Details are scant at the moment with the plans to be fleshed out at the next meeting.

Clinical practice and audit subgroup

Please contact us about either a model of good practice or an audit you have conducted and found worthwhile, and tell us all about it. It can then be written up and reviewed for publication in Synapse.

The questions that the report will follow will be similar to these:

• Can you give a brief summary of the
audit / model of good practice?

• What made you initiate it?

• How did you go about it?

• What measurements did you use?

• What resources did you use?

• What did you learn from the whole process?

• How has it changed your practice?

Examples could include any service development projects, or programmes which you feel have been beneficial to patient care. Please do consider contacting us, as the larger the range of ideas we receive, the more interesting and valuable this feature will be. If you would like to talk any ideas over, please contact Louise Dunthorne, Synapse Co-ordinator.

Research subgroup

The aims of the research subgroup are to:
• provide support for ACPIN national committee and liaise with the CSP and external agencies on research-related issues
• promote and support research activity within the membership
• advance understanding of aspects of research among the membership

Many of our tasks are regular and ongoing. After a break, Research Forum is back in the Spring issue of Synapse and focuses on qualitative research. If there are other issues you would like to see featured in the Research Forum articles in Synapse do let us know.

Communicating research is vital part of the research process but it is often difficult to get started. However, Synapse welcomes research articles and if you want to engage in dialogue with fellow physiotherapists, poster presentations are also welcome at ACPIN conferences.

If you are planning to conduct some research, the ACPIN Research Bursary is still running and available to members. The value of the bursary is £800 and this sum can be used to cover research expenses. Further details can be obtained here.

Back to top