This year’s World Physiotherapy Congress 2021 was held online from 9 – 11 April due to the ongoing challenges of the COVID-19 pandemic and restrictions. The Congress enabled physiotherapy practitioners and delegates around the globe to connect, gain insights, knowledge share and discuss topics that transcend international borders.
At this international Congress, the Council’s CEO Anton Barnett-Harris gave a presentation titled ‘Surviving a pandemic: Rapid prototyping accreditation and assessment in a Covid-19 world’.
Anton shared how the Council’s accreditation and assessment work, whilst impacted by the pandemic, continued to be delivered, in large part due to our organisational culture and investments in the past years. He spoke about how the Council’s culture and values of being people-focused, collaborative, nimble and brave, and innovative were critical as we survived through 2020.
In his presentation, Anton highlighted two examples of the Council’s rapid prototyping, as we quickly responded to the disruption of the pandemic. These include conducting virtual accreditation ‘site visits’ with universities, rather than in person at campuses, and adapting our written assessment to a remotely invigilated delivery mode. Both of these instances demonstrated the Council’s commitment and priority to serve our customers, maintain strong partnerships with our stakeholders, ensure strong governance, all with the goal to provide high-quality accreditation and assessment services.
Anton’s presentation concluded with the recognition that the experiences and lessons from surviving the pandemic will continue to inform our decision-making and developing future initiatives as contribute to the global work of physiotherapy.