As the UK’s largest private employer of physios, we currently have 300 highly-trained physiotherapists delivering more than 600,000 in-person and virtual appointments across the UK each year.
Over the next 12 months, we plan to increase the size of our physio team by almost 50%, improving both our reach and appointment capacity. This will enable our clinicians to deliver approximately one million in-person and virtual appointments each year. In addition, as we operate as a partner to the NHS, and 400 private businesses across the UK, we will also be expanding our support teams, creating a further 35 roles at our Bristol and Fareham offices.
This move follows a surge in demand for our physiotherapy-led services, including a 300% increase in requirements for our private medical insurance (PMI) and occupational health offerings over the last 12 months, and we are on track to achieve record revenue in excess of £40m next year. If we achieve our recruitment target, we will double our revenue within the next few years.
The increase in demand has been largely driven by a pre-pandemic investment Ascenti has made into our digital services, which meant that when Covid-19 hit, we were immediately able to shift to offering patients online appointments. Data from 27,000 online Ascenti sessions showed we were just as clinically effective as in-person treatment and 92% of patients were happy with the results¹. With restrictions now lifted, we are leading the industry in our ability to offer patients a choice of either online or in-person appointments, fuelling further demand for our services.
A second factor driving growth is the fact that physiotherapy is increasingly seen by private medical insurers and occupational health providers as a key route to giving members and employees easy access to high-quality proactive and preventative healthcare - seemingly much needed, with latest figures revealing that the number of working days lost due to musculoskeletal conditions increased by 29% during the pandemic - up from 6.9m days in 2018/19² to 8.9m in 2019/20³.
To attract more physiotherapists, we have launched an enhanced benefits package which includes a raft of lifestyle benefits including flexible working, wellbeing support programmes, extended parental leave, and paid leave to support charitable causes. These benefits have been added to our already exceptional learning and development offering, which includes a multi-award-winning CPD programme, ring-fenced paid education time every week, clinical mentoring and a unique banding system that enables far faster career progression than is available elsewhere.
Commenting on the growth and recruitment drive, Stephanie Dobrikova, CEO of Ascenti, said: “Demand for our industry-leading services has never been greater, with our highly-qualified team of physios combining hands-on techniques alongside cognitive therapies and progressive digital health services to deliver the very best care to a rapidly growing patient base across the country.
“In order to ensure we’re best placed to keep up with surging demand, we’re looking to recruit a further 140 forward-thinking physios across the country to deliver a mix of both in-person and online musculoskeletal-focused services.
“We offer a wide range of industry-leading benefits, with our physios supported through an award-winning Learning and Development programme that enables them to progress their career far more quickly than is possible elsewhere, while we also welcome applications from physios who are looking for a more flexible role that fits with their family or lifestyle needs.
“Employee wellbeing is a huge focus for us and we’re so proud of the caring, supportive and inclusive culture that exists at Ascenti, with many physios joining our team as a direct result of recommendations from existing employees.”
To learn more about our new roles available, visit our career section.
To support our recruitment drive, we have also launched a Refer a Friend scheme, whereby any member of the public who refers someone who goes on to secure a role with Ascenti will be rewarded with a £200 shopping voucher, you can find out more here.
References:
¹ Ascenti. Investigating the effectiveness of virtual physiotherapy (2020)
² Health and Safety Executive. Health and safety at work: summary statistics (2019)
³ Health and Safety Executive. Working Days Lost in Great Britain (2021)
