Recovering well after surgery
After an operation, physiotherapy helps reduce pain and swelling and restore your movement, strength, balance and function — so you can get back to the activities that matter, safely and with confidence.
Recovery is rarely a straight line, and the right support makes a real difference. We guide you through each stage — protecting healing tissues early on, then progressively rebuilding strength and stamina — while keeping your lungs clear and your confidence growing.
How we support your recovery
Settling symptoms and restoring gentle, safe movement within your post-operative precautions.
Breathing exercises and airway clearance to help prevent and treat chest complications.
Rebuilding strength, balance and stamina step by step as healing allows.
A clear plan to get you back to work, daily tasks and the activities you enjoy.
After many kinds of surgery
We tailor your programme to your operation and any precautions your surgical team has set.
Chest & heart
Recovery after lung, cardiac and other thoracic surgery, including sternal precautions.
Abdominal
Restoring mobility and protecting the chest after major abdominal procedures.
Orthopaedic
Rebuilding joint movement, strength and confidence after orthopaedic surgery.
Orthopaedic surgery alongside heart or lung disease. Many of the people we see are having a knee, hip or shoulder replaced while already managing a cardiac or respiratory condition — and that combination changes the rehabilitation. Breathlessness limits how hard you can work the new joint, and the joint limits the exercise that keeps your heart and lungs conditioned. Thomas Walters, our Senior Physiotherapist, holds clinical interests in both orthopaedics and respiratory physiotherapy, so your joint rehabilitation and your chest can be managed together in the one programme rather than in two separate places.
Where helpful, we'll liaise with your surgeon and wider medical team so your rehabilitation stays aligned with your overall recovery plan.
When to start
Sooner is usually better, and sooner can be earlier than people expect. For most operations, gentle breathing work and moving safely begin in hospital, and picking that up again in the first week or two at home keeps the momentum. If you have been discharged with restrictions or a surgeon's protocol, bring it with you — we work inside it rather than around it.
There is no point at which it becomes too late. People come to us months after an operation, having got most of the way back and stalled, and that is a perfectly reasonable place to start.
How long recovery takes
It depends on the operation, your fitness beforehand, and what you are aiming to get back to. As a rough guide, most people attend weekly or fortnightly for six to twelve appointments, with a short daily home programme between visits, and are then reviewed to decide whether to continue, progress independently, or finish.
We set the goals with you in your own terms — sleeping through the night, walking to the shops, lifting a grandchild, returning to work — because those are the things you can judge for yourself. Where your surgeon has set milestones or restrictions, the programme is built to meet them.
Other services
Pre-surgical Rehabilitation
Preparing your heart, lungs and strength for a smoother recovery after surgery.
Learn MoreCardiorespiratory Rehabilitation
Structured, supervised exercise to build capacity, strength and quality of life.
Learn MorePhysiotherapy Assessment
A thorough cardiorespiratory assessment to build your individualised plan.
Learn More