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The pelvic health physiotherapy service at the Royal Free London offers specialist assessment and rehabilitation of pelvic, bladder and bowel dysfunction, for both men and women.
Patients are often referred from obstetrics, gynaecologists and colorectal and urology surgeons for our services.
Examples of patients referred to us include women in pregnancy with pain in the pelvis and men with urinary incontinence following prostate surgery.
Our aim is to diagnose a patient’s condition and set out a treatment plan with them to achieve the best possible outcome.
Outpatient services
Our specialist outpatient services for women include treatment for pregnancy-related pain, sexual pain, bladder or bowel problems and those with pelvic floor muscle dysfunction.
Our specialist outpatient services for men include treatment for bladder or bowel problems.
Inpatient services
Our inpatient service provides support and advice on our postnatal and gynaecology wards to women who have a high risk of pelvic floor dysfunction after birth or gynaecological surgery.
Our experienced team of pelvic health physiotherapists provide assessment and treatment for the following problems:
- stress urinary incontinence: leaking urine during a run, cough or sneeze
- urinary frequency, urgency and urge incontinence: the feeling of needing to empty the bladder frequently and/or rush to get to the toilet in time, often accompanied with loss of control of urine
- faecal/flatus incontinence: the loss of control of bowels and/or wind
- faecal urgency: the feeling of needing to empty the bowel with little warning
- obstructive defecation: difficulty emptying the bowels
- pelvic pain/vulval pain/dyspareunia: pain with sexual intercourse and/or chronic pain in the pelvic region
- perineal trauma: injury to the pelvic floor from childbirth
- pelvic organ prolapse: anterior or posterior vaginal wall and uterine descent
- pregnancy and postnatal-related musculoskeletal conditions: pelvic girdle pain, back pain, coccyx pain, hip pain, rib pain and carpal tunnel syndrome
- men's health: bladder and bowel care after prostate surgery, pelvic floor training for erectile dysfunction, bowel care following bowel surgery, and pelvic pain
Outpatient referrals
At Barnet Hospital and Chase Farm Hospital, referrals are accepted only from Royal Free London consultants and from the North Central London Integrated Care System for obstetrics and gynaecology. We do not accept Barnet GP referrals.
The Royal Free Hospital can only accept referrals from within the Royal Free London NHS Foundation Trust.
Obstetrics
- Self-referral (any address/GP, if delivering at the Royal Free London)
- Camden CCG GPs.
Gynaecology
- via Royal Free London consultant (any address/GP)
- Camden CCG GPs.
Pelvic, Obstetric and Gynaecological Physiotherapy (POGP) is a professional network for physiotherapists.
The POGP has produced a variety of information booklets on a range of conditions and topics in women and men’s health.
The booklets have been written by qualified women and men’s health physiotherapists with reference to evidence and research where available and are updated regularly.
Along with our own information resources, we also use the following POGP booklets:
- Exercise in pregnancy
- Pelvic girdle pain in pregnancy
- Information after having a baby (fit for future)
- Exercise and advice after the loss of your baby
- Fit for Pregnancy
- Fit for Birth
Video playlist: pelvic health and wellbeing during pregnancy
To watch these videos in one of 15 other languages, click below.
Video playlist in other languages
- Pelvic floor exercises for men
- Pelvic floor muscle exercises and advice: for trans men, trans masculine and non-binary people (who were assigned female at birth)
- Pelvic floor muscle exercises and advice: for trans women, trans feminine and non-binary people (who were assigned male at birth)
