Quality Assurance
Active X Backs’ Clinical Director, Gavin Routledge MSc DO(Hons) is responsible for the creation of all training and assessments. As a statutorily regulated healthcare professional with a Masters Degree in the Clinical Management of Pain, he has also written 2 books on lower back pain. As a regulated osteopath he is required to complete his own CPD and is peer reviewed every 3 years as part of that registration and regulation process. He sits on the British Society of Lifestyle Medicine’s Special Interest Group on Chronic Pain, and is external examiner for the Scottish Massage Therapists’ Organisation.
All of Active X Backs training is focused on the relief and prevention of lower back pain and sciatica via physical activity and education. By specialising in this domain, we are able to provide high quality, validated information tailored to the needs of our learners.
The validity and relevance of the information in our training is benchmarked against the clinical guidelines. Emerging knowledge in our field is surfaced by appropriate automated google feeds on topics such as
- Low back pain
- Sciatica
These feeds come from news items as well as research sources.
In this way Active X Backs is able to update its course content when the need arises and to give some perspective to its learners on this emerging knowledge via its private Facebook group.
We are not seeking to meet any awarding organisations’ standards on the topic of lower back pain and sciatica. The research related to lower back pain and sciatica demonstrates that much of conventional practice is potentially damaging to patient long-term outcomes. Particularly when it comes to the offering of patho-anatomic diagnoses. Consequently, our training focuses on enabling its learners to empower their clients through a functional approach to movement and an educational approach to pain.
We make it clear to our learners that they are not equipped to diagnose the cause of pain in their clients. This is largely because clinicians rarely agree on diagnoses. And – as commented above – the offering of diagnoses frequently leads to greater anxiety in sufferers and worse long-term outcomes.
We enable our learners to understand their limitations of practice. And provide them with screening questions for their clients – the exact screening questions used by clinicians specialising in this field, and recommended by the clinical guidelines. In this way we ensure that sufferers (our learners’ clients) are referred for clinical support where that need is present. This is – across a population – approximately 1 in a thousand cases.
We provide an educational platform for sufferers which we insist our learners point their clients to. In this way, the client gets information delivered to them directly from us that is consistent with the information provided to our learners, but tailored to the patients’ needs. Our learners can reinforce that information to clients, based on what they have learnt on our course.
The patients’ platform also screens patients with the relevant questions and points them towards clinical support when that is indicated. Patients also agree to our terms and conditions which stipulate clearly that Active X Backs and its partners (the learners) do not provide medical advice.
Active X Backs seeks feedback from its learners in order to improve the quality and content of its training.
Throughout our online training, learners are encouraged via a series of automated emails, delivered by our CRM, to provide feedback – positive and negative.
Our learners have a private Facebook group which we monitor in order to detect implied criticisms of the course content and/or our service. This enables us to improve in these areas.
The submissions of answers to our in-course quizzes is monitored in order to determine the performance of cohorts of learners. In this way we can determine whether course content and assessments are too difficult or overly-simple. Adjustments may be made accordingly.
We will also monitor the frequency and nature of any requests for adjustments and special considerations and the nature and number of enquiries and appeals and any malpractice/maladministration events. This will better inform our processes. Any feedback on these fronts will be incorporated into our course content and delivery within 30 days.
Continuous improvement is assured through ongoing monitoring, thus promoting public confidence in the quality of all Active X Backs qualifications.
Prompt action is taken to address any weakness identified, and this monitoring forms part of Active X Backs annual self-assessment activities.
In the event that modifications to course content and/or delivery are required, this will be effected within 30 days. As our course content is delivered online, this can be easily achieved within our Learning Management System (LMS).
As our course is delivered on an automated online system (a LMS), we adhere to good user-centred design principles and ensure that we comply with relevant data security requirements.
Contact
If you have any queries about the contents of the policy, please contact our support team on: 0131 221 1415
info@backpainandsciatica.com
