Personal Statement Guidelines
When writing your personal statement please consider the following areas:
- Justification for wanting to enter the profession – what attracts you to this profession?
- Is it the values, characteristics, behaviours &/or variety of roles and responsibilities?
- Why does this profession stand out for you compared to other health and social care professions?
- Investigation of Physiotherapy as a career – to be able to make an informed career choice you must investigate some of the diversity of the profession ideally through direct observation of physiotherapists in diverse areas of practice
- Evidence of additional skills, knowledge, experience – Transferable skills – how do your personal attributes, values, characteristics, behaviours and experiences relate to or prepare you for this challenging academic programme and a future career as a physiotherapist.
Structured Personal Statement
Tell us the reason you have chosen to study Physiotherapy.
Within this answer you can tell us what motivated you to become a physiotherapist, and what you find interesting or inspiring about the profession. We would like you to show that you understand the role of the physiotherapist in different areas of clinical practice and the skills, values and qualities that are needed. Additionally, describe why this health care profession suits you personally. We expect you to give examples that show you have a caring attitude.
Describe the roles and responsibilities of physiotherapists.
In this section you should tell us about your investigation into the physiotherapy profession, particularly discussing experiences you have had of physiotherapy. Although receiving physiotherapy yourself might have been your introduction to the profession we expect applicants to explore further than this. This must include work experience or placements within a physiotherapy setting, the opportunity to talk to physiotherapists about their role and evidence of reading around the subject or accessing information on the internet. Rather than simply providing a list, please expand on what the experience taught you about the profession. Physiotherapy is very varied profession, working with different populations in different settings; you should demonstrate an awareness of this.
Tell us about skills, knowledge and experience you have and explain why this is relevant to a future career in Physiotherapy.
Please use experiences from previous learning, work, volunteering, hobbies, sport, music and any other activities you think relevant. Again, rather than a list of achievements please explain the specific skills or values demonstrated and how this has helped prepare you for study and a future career as a Physiotherapist. It may be useful to look at the NHS Constitution Values as this discusses the values and behaviours important for working in health care in the UK.
https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/the-nhs-constitution-for-england/the-nhs-constitution-for-england
