Alan Upfold is a director at County Chiropractic & Wellness Centre in Exeter, Devon, which he has run since September 2017. Speaking on The Leaders Council Podcast, Upfold told of how a career change from hospitality saw him develop into the business leader he is today, the skills from his former role that have helped make him successful, and his thoughts on how the network of chiropractors in the UK could cut the NHS treatment backlog generated by Covid.
Upfold worked in the hospitality industry for almost a decade before taking over Country Chiropractic & Wellness Centre in September 2017. During his stint in hospitality, he worked for numerous large businesses, looking after finance, customers and team members. Sitting down with interviewer, Scott Challinor, Upfold told of how an unexpected offer proved too good to turn down, culminating in a move that would alter the trajectory of his career.
Upfold explained: “After almost ten years of working in hospitality and getting into your thirties, it can feel tough to get yourself going. You’re on your feet all day, you're running around chasing after people, and you realise why not a lot of people in their fifties and sixties like to work in such high-volume environments like that. So, I was looking for a change and I’d already been in the process of learning to be a mortgage advisor, but then my partner who had been working at the Wellness Centre for a few years came home one day and told me that she’d been offered the clinic. It’s from that conversation that we are where we are now.
“So, after what was an interesting day with us, we met with the owners to see if it was a viable option for us. We were up against it really, having literally just bought a house and a car, but we decided we’d go for it and find a way to make it work and that’s how the career change came together.”
Reflecting on what he had learned from his life in hospitality and from his training to become a financial advisor, Upfold believes he had acquired a comprehensive set of easily transferable skills which he could use to help the new family business excel.
“Whatever industry you’re in, be it hospitality or wellness, you still have a business to run. You’ll therefore need the people management skills and product selling skills and in that sense it was all very similar to what I knew. I had the aptitude I needed in these areas.
“The main difference for me was learning about a new product and really embracing what we were selling. Once I knew the product inside out, I was able to really push it.”
Less than three years into life at the new business, Upfold was forced to contend with the significant challenges posed by the Covid-19 pandemic and associated social restrictions. Having successfully been able to guide the business through and maintain its running, Upfold now believes that the network of chiropractors in the UK can play a major part in tackling the NHS backlog brought about by the pandemic-enforced postponements of elective surgery and non-urgent procedures.
Upfold said: “The trouble with the NHS patient waiting list is that a lot of them will have been waiting for a long time. Simply put, the longer you have a problem for, the more issues it creates and the harder it becomes to fix. The real issue with the backlog is that it is getting longer before we start to see it subside, and chiropractors can help because 30 per cent of all GP appointments involve the muscular and skeletal systems.
“If the GP is the first point of call, and a patient has complaints of back pain but hasn’t suffered obvious trauma such as a broken bone, the GP can then refer that case out to the chiropractic network and chiropractors will simply do what they do to make them feel better and avoid the pain persisting or worsening so the patient doesn’t then have to go to the NHS later. There are other options to get people well again, it doesn’t have to always revolve around NHS referrals and appointments.
“I suppose one of the reasons why so many are referred to the NHS is because chiropractors are private healthcare providers and patients need to pay the money, and obviously people pay for the NHS already through national insurance and perhaps don’t want additional cost for further treatment. So, there is a disconnect there, but during the first national lockdown we did see the chiropractic network approached by the NHS to help alleviate the strain on the health service. What the NHS can now do in kind is help the chiropractic network as well as limiting its own backlog by giving them the option of coming to us. Many chiropractors I know will gladly take NHS referrals and then the NHS can foot the bill on behalf of the patients, so the cost doesn’t affect the end user.
“We are in a position to help, we’re here and ready when called upon.”
Listen to the full interview with Alan Upfold on The Leaders Council Podcast below.
Photo by Toa Heftiba on Unsplash
