The clinic

One address, three clinicians, twelve years

We are not a chain and we are not opening a second site. Everything below — who works here, what we measure, what we will and will not claim — is on this page because a patient ought to be able to check it before they hand over seventy-two pounds and their medical history.

Since 2014

A cutlery works with two treatment rooms in it

Ruth Ellery opened Plumbline in 2014, after eleven years in NHS outpatient musculoskeletal services and one too many clinics where nobody could tell a patient how long their treatment would take or what it would come to. The ground floor of 4 Alma Street had been a silver-plating shop, then a screen printer's, then empty for six years. It has good light, thick walls and a floor you can drop a kettlebell on.

The name is not decoration. A plumb line is the oldest measuring instrument there is: a fixed reference, a weight, and an honest answer about whether something is where it should be. That is close enough to what this job actually involves — measure it, treat it, measure it again, and say plainly whether it has moved.

Two enclosed treatment rooms, a rehabilitation floor, and a small gait lab at the back. Ground level throughout with no step from the pavement, six free parking bays on the street outside, and Shalesmoor tram stop four minutes' walk away. If you need a ground-floor toilet, a chair while you wait, or someone to come out to the car, ring ahead and we will sort it.

One of the two treatment rooms at Plumbline, with a physiotherapy plinth and equipment

2014: Opened on Alma Street
3: Clinicians, all HCPC-registered, all listed with their numbers
2 days: Median wait from enquiry to assessment across 2025
5: Median sessions per completed course of treatment

The clinicians

Names, qualifications, registration numbers

“Physiotherapist” is a title protected in law: using it without HCPC registration is a criminal offence under the Health Professions Order 2001. That protection is only worth anything if you can check it, so the numbers are here. The register is at hcpc-uk.org and a search takes about fifteen seconds.

Ruth Ellery

Clinical Director · MSK Physiotherapist

Qualified at Sheffield Hallam in 2003 and spent eleven years in NHS outpatient MSK before opening Plumbline. Shoulders and tendons are most of her list — rotator cuff related shoulder pain, calcific tendinopathy, frozen shoulder — and she runs the clinic's shockwave service. She is the one who insists every course has a written estimate and a review at session four, on the grounds that a patient who cannot see the end of a treatment plan is not really consenting to it.

MCSP
BSc (Hons) Physiotherapy
MSc Advanced MSK Physiotherapy
ESWT certified

HCPC PH61042 · check at hcpc-uk.org

Aled Prichard

Senior MSK Physiotherapist

Twenty-two years qualified, nine of them here, spines throughout. He screens every low back patient with the STarT Back tool at first contact, because a stiff back that needs mobilising and a sensitised back that needs graded exposure look almost identical across a waiting room and respond to completely different treatment. AACP-trained in Western medical acupuncture and dry needling.

MCSP
AACP
BSc (Hons) Physiotherapy
Spinal rehabilitation

HCPC PH48117 · check at hcpc-uk.org

Marguerite Okonkwo

Podiatrist · Foot & Ankle Lead

Thirty-one years in podiatry, the last nine at Plumbline, and the clinic's biomechanics lead. Plantar heel pain and Achilles tendinopathy are the bulk of it, with gait assessment behind both. She has a standing rule that nobody is sold an orthosis in the same appointment they are assessed in — the report comes first, and about a third of the time it recommends a change to training load instead.

Royal College of Podiatry
BSc (Hons) Podiatry
MSK foot & ankle
Gait analysis

HCPC CH31766 · check at hcpc-uk.org

“Nobody comes here because they want physiotherapy. They come because something hurts and they have run out of ways to ignore it. The least we owe them is a number they can check, a plan they can read, and a date it is supposed to end.”

Ruth Ellery, Clinical Director

How we measure

Scores, not impressions

Every course starts with a validated outcome measure and repeats it at session four. Which one depends on the problem: MSK-HQ generally, SPADI for shoulders, the Oxford Knee Score, QuickDASH for the upper limb, the Patient-Specific Functional Scale where what matters is a specific activity, and STarT Back at first contact for low back pain. Using standardised measures is an explicit requirement of the Chartered Society of Physiotherapy's quality assurance standards — we just also show you the numbers.

The point is not the paperwork. It is that “are we getting anywhere?” becomes a question with an answer, asked on a fixed date, by us, whether or not you raise it.

What we will not say

No cures, no guarantees

We will not promise you an outcome, and you should be wary of any clinic that does. Physiotherapists are bound by HCPC standard 9.3 — promotional material must be accurate and not misleading — and by the CAP Code, which treats claims to treat specific conditions as requiring clinical-trial evidence. Patient reviews do not count as evidence for that purpose, which is why the reviews on this site describe how we work rather than what we fixed.

What we will tell you is what we think is wrong, what the evidence supports doing about it, roughly how long that takes, and — at session four — whether it is working. If it is not, you will hear it from us.

Governance

Regulation, records and complaints

Who regulates you?

The Health and Care Professions Council. All three clinicians are on the HCPC register — two under the physiotherapist code (PH) and one under the chiropodist/podiatrist code (CH) — and their numbers are published above. Ruth and Aled are also Chartered members of the CSP; Marguerite is a member of the Royal College of Podiatry. Chartered membership is voluntary and is not a licence to practise; HCPC registration is the part required by law.

Are you registered with the Care Quality Commission?

No, and we are not required to be. CQC registration is triggered by carrying on a regulated activity, and physiotherapy delivered by HCPC-registered physiotherapists is not one — physiotherapists do not appear in the list of professions at Schedule 1, paragraph 4(4)(a) of SI 2014/2936. A physiotherapy clinic does need to register if it employs, say, a doctor to run an injection clinic, or wants to work under Patient Group Directions. We do neither. Any clinic advertising that it is “voluntarily CQC registered” has misunderstood the regime.

What insurance do you hold?

Professional liability cover through Chartered Society of Physiotherapy membership — £7.5 million any one claim, £10 million in the aggregate, plus £10 million public and products liability. Holding appropriate indemnity is a legal condition of HCPC registration under Article 11A of the Health and Social Work Professions Order 2001.

What happens to my records?

Your clinical notes are special category health data. We are registered with the Information Commissioner's Office (ZA486203) and keep records for eight years from your last appointment, mirroring NHS retention guidance for England — until age 25 for anyone treated as a child. You can ask for a copy at any time and we will provide it within a month, free of charge.

What if I want to complain?

Tell your clinician first — most things are a misunderstanding and are fixed in five minutes. If that does not settle it, email hello@plumblinephysio.co.uk and Ruth will acknowledge within five working days and complete a written review within twenty. If you are still unhappy you can raise it with the HCPC, which regulates the individual clinician's fitness to practise. We will give you the details rather than making you look for them.

Book

Come and see for yourself.

Assessment, forty-five minutes, £72, usually within two working days. No referral, no waiting list, and no obligation to book a course at the end of it.

Book an assessment 0114 496 0118