MACP announcement

Chris Mercer
MACP, United Kingdom
a r t i c l e i n f o
Article history:
Received 4 August 2011
Accepted 4 August 2011
The MACP membership has voted in favour of a change of name
from the Manipulation Association of Chartered Physiotherapists
to the Musculoskeletal Association of Chartered Physiotherapists.
Members were very keen to maintain the acronym of MACP, given
that this has become nationally and internationally known, and
associated with expertise in the eld of neuro-musculoskeletal
physiotherapy. Members are rightly proud of the reputation of
the organisation and would understandably be very reluctant to
relinquish the acronym.
Discussions about changing the name of the MACP have been
aired over many years, and have been driven by the desire to
broaden the name to reect more accurately the breadth of our
skills. The MACP was originally set up to teach postgraduate
physiotherapists skills in advanced clinical reasoning and advanced
manual skills, including manipulation. This was in a climate where
these skills were not within the normal practice of physiothera-
pists, and considerable efforts were made by a visionary group at
that time to develop these opportunities.
The name of the organisation that evolved from these efforts
was the Manipulation Association of Chartered Physiotherapists
and this accurately reected the nature and drive of the organisa-
tion at the time. Our membership of the International Federation of
Orthopaedic Manipulative Physical Therapists (IFOMPT) reects
our expertise in teaching and examining manipulation at a post-
graduate level. This level of excellence, and our ability to continu-
ally demonstrate it, makes us the only UK musculoskeletal interest
group to belong to this international body, the rst sub-group of
WCPT.
Since our inception, both the physiotherapy profession and the
MACP have moved on considerably. Manipulation is now taught as
an undergraduate skill and is well established within usual phys-
iotherapy practice. It is one of many tools used to treat neuro-
musculoskeletal disorders, and is still an important technique in
the tool bag of techniques available to us. We have all moved
forward in our understanding of the interaction of the bio-psycho
and social on patient outcomes, and our practice has developed
accordingly. The new name of the MACP helps to reect this
broader view of our approach to managing people with musculo-
skeletal disorders.
The proposed name change follows an extended period of
consultation and discussion with members over the last 2 years or
so, and is driven by members desire to have a name that reects the
breadth of the skills and experience within the organisation.
We are very happy to head into the future with our new name,
but our old acronym, and can assure everyone that we will strive to
maintain the highest standards set by our visionary predecessors.
Contents lists available at ScienceDirect
Manual Therapy
j ournal homepage: www. el sevi er. com/ mat h
1356-689X/$ e see front matter 2011 Published by Elsevier Ltd.
doi:10.1016/j.math.2011.08.002
Manual Therapy 16 (2011) 520