Star Physio are a small team of physiotherapists (Steven Southwell, Jo Wilkes and Holly Garwell) with over 30 years’ experience, specialising in treating babies, children and adults with neurological and developmental disabilities. The story of Star Physio began when Steve and Jo met as college students, and went on to train together as physiotherapists at Brighton University. Even in their studen
t days, they had dreams of working together, and developed an interest in the therapeutic benefits of hydrotherapy, essentially physiotherapy conducted in a heated water pool where the heat and the buoyancy of the water creates a beneficial environment for the treatment of many conditions and needs. In 2013, alongside his NHS work, Steve started renting a small hydrotherapy pool to treat a handful of private clients. This proved very successful, and to meet demand he quickly enlisted help from Jo. They soon realised that the local Sussex community lacked a specialised hydrotherapy service that was affordable and accessible. Despite never advertising, Steve and Jo quickly built up a waiting list of potential clients, and realised they were not able to meet the demand for their hydrotherapy service. With an eye to expansion, Steve and Jo entered the 2016 Santander Universities Entrepreneurship Awards to test the viability of an enhanced service and to access business advice and support from the experts. After winning the award for “Most Enterprising Community Project” under the then name of ‘247Physio’, the shared vision for a hydrotherapy and physiotherapy practice gathered pace. Steve and Jo quickly embraced the interest of the third experienced physiotherapist, Holly, and committed to working together to develop an accessible assessment and therapy based service for neurologically disabled children and adults in their local community. This collaboration become ‘Star Physio’, a registered Social Enterprise with the core value of providing affordable aquatic and land physiotherapy for paediatric and adult clients.
