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Clinical Influencer, Cohort 2

Christian Lambert, Clinical Lead Physiotherapist, Swansea Bay University Health Board.

Chris graduated from Cardiff University in 2006. He initially worked at Cardiff and Vale UHB and become a specialist musculoskeletal physiotherapist in 2009. Outside of his NHS work, Chris has worked in elite sports as a physiotherapist. He has worked at the London 2012 games, with team Wales and at the Glasgow 2014 Commonwealth Games.

In 2014, Chris moved to Swansea Bay UHB to take on an advanced practice physiotherapy role. In 2019, he setup a new service for managing patients with osteoarthritis (OA) called the Exercise & Lifestyle programme. In 2021, Chris was part of a research team looking at orthopaedic waiting lists for arthroplasty surgery. He went on to use this research data to create the Swansea Bay UHB Orthopaedic Prehabilitation service. The Orthopaedic Prehabilitation service supports, optimises and prepares patients for their knee or hip joint replacement.

Chris is currently conducting a PhD in Cardiff University on ‘prehabilitation pathway evaluation and monitoring the effects of extended waiting lists on patient’s health’. He currently works as a clinical lead and academic within OA and Prehabilitation services in Swansea Bay alongside his research.

Chris’s professional interests include:

• Managing planned care waiting lists
• Prehabilitation
• Lifestyle intervention
• Digital health
• Effects of waiting lists on patient health

More about the Swansea Bay Orthopaedic Prehabilitation service: It was setup using clinical research to carefully plan support for patients. The service uses a two tier digital and supervised support programme to monitor health and customise support according to patient’s needs. The tier one interactive digital platform offers ongoing health monitoring along with nudging and sign posting patients to optimise patient’s health independently. It also triages appropriate patients with higher health needs into supervised therapy led tier two support services. Through collaborative working with industry partners, Chris developed the digital platform whilst concurrently building a Therapy led Prehabilitation support service. The platform and therapy team, offer the overall support service to Swansea Bay patients waiting for elective joint replacement in line with the Welsh Government 3Ps policy.