Debbie Richards

Debbie qualified from the University of the West of England in 2012 with a first-class honours degree in Physiotherapy.

She has worked across a wide variety of clinical settings — elderly care, accident and emergency, musculoskeletal outpatients, orthopaedics, respiratory, intensive care and community rehabilitation — beginning at Gloucester Hospital before moving through Wimborne, Poole, Plymouth and Torbay to broaden her experience.

She then specialised in older people’s care across both acute and community settings, before focusing on private practice and founding the clinical side of Salveo Forma.

Salveo Forma exists because of what she kept seeing on the wards. Pressure on beds meant people were sometimes discharged before they were really ready, and community physiotherapy — where it exists at all — is largely clinic-based, so you have to be mobile and confident enough to travel to it. The people who could not were quietly lost to follow-up. Debbie also met people who had never been near a hospital, who had simply lost their confidence after a fall and deconditioned slowly until they became vulnerable. Getting older is inevitable. Losing your strength, mobility and independence is not.

Her specialism is older people’s physiotherapy and rehabilitation, taking a holistic view of age-related conditions rather than treating one joint at a time. The aim is to build confidence, reduce falls, and improve balance and mobility — while, in her own words, also having fun. People try harder when they are enjoying themselves, and rehabilitation only works if it gets done.

Debbie also runs falls workshops in care homes, delivered to residents and staff together. The residents get the exercises and the confidence. The staff, who are there every day, pick up what to look for in someone who has become unsteady and how to help without taking over — and that is often the part that lasts longest after she has left the building.

She is also qualified in Western-based medical acupuncture, having completed her training with the Acupuncture Association of Chartered Physiotherapists.

As Clinical Director she is uncompromising about the quality of care our clients receive, and she personally matches each new client to the therapist best suited to their condition and their goals.

Outside work Debbie enjoys running, spending time with her family, and going to the local athletics club with her children. When she went travelling she completed a skydive and a bungy jump in New Zealand, and she is proud to have spent time in London with the Olympic athletes in 2012.