Trotting off to a gym to do your own idea of rehabilitation exercises is madness
I don't know about you, but after 45 years of joint and tendon injuries due to a combination of hypermobility/connective tissue disease and Psoriatic Arthritis - and a sizeable case of 'Chances are I'm going to wake up tomorrow and something else will be hurting, so I might as well do something fun and at least know why I'm in pain for a change' - I am pretty good at knowing what to do for particular situations and what they feel like.
There's no point in taking up NHS time and money to see the physio in the literal local authority gym where they hold their sessions to be asked to do three exercises with the pins out of the plates after 3 minutes of warmup when a) I have a perfectly good gym membership already, b) my gym has Concept 2s, not the Skillrow, whose main benefits appear to be that you don't have to sit so low down and the resistance can be adjusted without leaning forwards and c) that adductor machine looks worryingly like it's never been wiped (or serviced) in its life.
The other issue is that an NHS physio is generally only able to deal with one particular issue that's been referred to them rather than a 'there's the right labral tear, and then there's the gluteus medius tendinosis, plus there's moderate narrowing of the disk space between L5 and S1, the sacroiliac joint was completely locked up for six months, which really hurt until I managed to pop it just before Easter, oh, and the left ankle, that's got a combination of tendinopathy of lateral peroneal and achilles with considerable retrocalcaneal bursitis in the latter and bursitis in the 3rd, 4th and 5th metatarsals until I got some customs and changed to On Cloudflyers, and my shoulder popped randomly last week, but I think that was a combination of a bit of weakness following the partial thickness tear of the right supraspinatus (should have been more careful with goblet squats) and some impingement + wear and tear of the acromioclavicular joint'.
I just need the imaging to confirm that the latest novel site of pain/swelling/lack of range of motion/impingement/whatever isn't due to something particularly hideous (no point waiting 14 months for yet another USS or MRI or x-ray when I already know why a firm press to a certain point will result in a sharp intake of breath - they've looked at almost every joint, limb and structure multiple times in my life, after all) and then I'm good to go and get on with it - at vastly reduced cost to the NHS, my employer - and me, as it's not deteriorating along with strength and mobility in the rest of my body, due to fear.
And if it's a full blown PsA flare instead of just the odd joint or enthesis here and there, I get to wear clothes that are easy to put on, footwear that helps (but doesn't exactly look professional), sit on things that are designed to encourage ergonomic positioning instead of a chair from about 1994, zone out rather than be constantly interrupted, have to pick up a phone, use a crappy workstation, and then enjoy airconditioning, cool, supportive water, dry and moist heat and use what little energy I have to do something that will help me recover, rather than half kill myself in work and then be unable to do anything that might help and will likely cause me to deteriorate further.
Of course, in an ideal world, I'd have the money for private sports physio regularly and private imaging. But I don't. So I'll use the NHS for the bits I can't avoid - the imaging - and then the bits I already pay for - gym, gym gear, wobble boards, shoes, orthotics, bands, foam roller, theragun....etc....etc - to do the rest.