Kay Stevenson is a Consultant Physiotherapist within the Midland Partnership NHS Foundation Trust, a Senior Knowledge Mobilisation Fellow within the Impact Accelerator Unit (IAU) Keele University and an Honorary Professor in the Medical School, Keele University.

Within the IAU, she is responsible for embedding the best evidence into clinical practice to improve the care of patients with musculoskeletal disease. She was responsible for implementing the NIHR Themed Review: Moving Forward – Physiotherapy for Musculoskeletal Health and Wellbeing across Staffordshire. She recently led innovative projects, funded by the Health Foundation, NHS England and Staffordshire and Stoke and Stoke Integrated Care System Trent to ensure the best evidence is available to those with physical and emotional challenges.

In collaboration with public partners, clinicians, academics and industry partners she has led the co-production of BeeFree https://beefree.org.uk/, the implementation of an app to support patients with low back pain (Self Back https://www.keele.ac.uk/iau/knowledgemobilisation/iauknowledgemobilisationprojects/#selfstart) and the co-creation of resources to support patients make evidence based choices about their care https://www.keele.health/pain-resources-clinician/#DST.

She formed the successful Critically Appraised Topic Group. This multidisciplinary group of academics, clinicians and librarians have asked and answered over 140 clinical questions and improved care as a result. This has also led to three funded research trials and was awarded a British Society of Rheumatology Award for Outstanding Clinical Practice (2016). More recently, patient and public partners have joined the group and as a result have answered the first patient led Critically Appraised Topic. There are active ‘CAT’ groups across the region involving over 180 members.

She provides clinical leadership and expertise to a large multidisciplinary team of Physiotherapists, General Practitioners, Advanced Practice Physiotherapists and Podiatrists. She leads service and pathway re-design at local and national level and have employed the first patient within the musculoskeletal service to act as a critical friend. She leads the Staffordshire and Stoke on Trent MSK Stewardship and Transformation group and has a secondment to the Midlands NHS England Improvement team.