A Huddersfield physiotherapist and pain specialist is to speak at a medical conference in London.

Longley-based Georgie Oldfield will talk about her work at the British Institute’s Musculoskeletal Medicine’s Winter Symposium on December 7.

Georgie qualified as a physiotherapist 30 years ago and since 2007 has devoted more of her time to raising awareness of ways to help people recover from chronic pain rather than just manage it.

She argues that in cases where serious physical causes can be ruled out, chronic pain may be triggered by the brain and central nervous system in response to emotions and that as the process is reversible, full recovery is possible.

Georgie founded the Stress illness Recovery Practitioners’ Association which runs programmes to help health professionals integrate this concept and approach into their own practices.

She also spends time promoting the concept and working to have the approach accepted and recognised by the mainstream healthcare industry.

Back pain alone is estimated to cost £1.6bn in healthcare spending and accounts for almost 5m working days lost each year.

On any one day, 1% of the UK working population are on sick leave due to a back problem.