From May 2023 Designed2Move rehabilitation services have become part of Bespoke Wellbeing Ltd!

In keeping with the story of how Designed2Move began (keep reading), after a series of serious health challenges, Heather identified that the time had come to hand over the reins of Designed2Move so that the services can grow, and so that she can spend more time looking after her own health and keep getting outdoors with her cocker spaniel (Pedro) and having adventures in her old VW campervan.

You can read the press release here.

If you are reading this close to the date of transfer then please bear with us as we update documents and information to reflect the change.

Our updated contact details can be found on the home page and via the “Contact Us” link.

In the meantime, here is a little bit about how Designed2Move came to be…

Designed2Move has been providing active rehabilitation to individuals, case managers, solicitors, insurers and employers since 2011.

Heather McLellan founded the business and the specialist approach to functional rehabilitation after many years’ experience in physiotherapy, especially return to work rehabilitation.

Heather had been going out there and doing what she loved to do, helping and inspiring others to rediscover their potential and joy in life after injury or illness, and along the way improved her own health and wellbeing and job satisfaction too.

In 2016 the team expanded – Heather started to build a team of talented professionals who had the same aspirations in order to provide the Designed2Move rehabilitation services to more people around the UK.

You are designed to move. It may not always feel like it, and you may not be altogether sure whether it is always good for you, but our bodies are incredible machines that thrive on movement.

When Heather headed out from university as a newly qualified physio, she thought she had learnt all she needed to start her career and do a good job. So, it was a bit of a shock to realise that really most of us graduates of any type of medical training have only just scratched the surface of understanding the human being, and basically are doing ok if we can stick to the adage of “do no harm”. If we can actually do some good and help someone then that was a bonus!

Many years on, Heather continued to learn more and more, and in fact the more she learned the more she realised there is to know and therefore the less seem to really understand, but one thing she always hear herself telling her clients is “our bodies are designed to move” – hence the company name and the underlying philosophy behind what the services aim to do.

It is easy to get overwhelmed with all the information we are swamped with in this increasingly technological world and in the field of physiotherapy people are always looking for that latest technique, the newest breakthrough treatment to get rid of pain or restore function.

With so many things though we are in danger of chucking the baby out with the bath water.

Physiotherapy started out as being about being “a treatment discipline ancillary to medicine that uses physical methods such as active or passive exercises, gymnastics, weight lifting, heat treatment, massage, ultrasound … and hydrotherapy. Physiotherapists aim to restore the maximum possible degree of function to any disabled part of the body and are also much concerned the patient motivation” (Collins Dictionary of Medicine 1992 – when I started my training!). While many of us still use these techniques, we occasionally lose sight of the value of the simplicity of some of these approaches – the value of active exercise and just getting moving again is often forgotten.

So, when we tell our clients their bodies were designed to move, we know it is because one of our brain’s major functions is motor co-ordination of our nervous and muscular systems to enable us to literally move about and interact with other people, animals and our environment.

And why am I here and bothering to talk about it?

Because for Heather, for a few years, day to day work led her to question why she did what she did, and why she wanted to be a physio in the first place. Not least she realised that, almost daily, she had been advising people to get moving more, take more exercise, especially to get out and walk because it is easy, accessible and cheap. She had been extolling the virtues and physical benefits of moving our bodies regularly, and the knock on positive effects on one’s mental wellbeing. And then she wondered what happened to the active career she had hoped for when she started out, and pondered the irony of the advice she was doling out, while spending increasing amounts of time sat behind a desk…

Then she set about finding a new way to work to bring great physiotherapy to those who need it most.

Designed2Move is about getting back to the basics and doing it well.