Building A Practice That Matches Your Values And Personal Style
Running a multi-bed clinic with Sean Cleere at E5.Acupuncture in London
The Well is free to read for all subscribers, so you have unlimited access to all past, present and future editions. If you know anyone else who’d be interested in this newsletter, I’d be grateful for your help in sharing it with your colleagues and friends!
If you’re interested in finding out more about Circe’s wider support system for complementary health practitioners, consider joining our private, online community which connects you with likeminded colleagues, helpful resources and our booking platform to expand your practice.
Welcome to our very first practitioner profile, one of the many behind-the-scenes looks I’ll be sharing with you from across the complementary healthcare space. I hope these conversations leave you feeling inspired, support you in your own career or simply give you new insight into what’s happening across this space.
We’re lucky to have Sean Cleere with us to kick this series off. Sean runs the multi-bed clinic E5.Acupuncture in Clapton, London and his career took him on a journey across the world with lots of exploration along the way. I think you’ll enjoy this conversation, and feel free to share it with friends and colleagues!
Hi Sean! Thank you for sharing your story with me, and for trusting me with this new concept too. Let’s start with your personal background, can you share with us where you started your career and also, how you found your way from treating in the UK, to Sri Lanka and India - and back again?
I graduated from CICM in 1997 and have been in continuous practice since then. I originally focused mainly on MSK, as this was my personal introduction to acupuncture and I felt it was underused in our profession at the time, if you can believe it! I practiced in and around Reading for my first 7 years as an acupuncturist. Including the clinic at CICM and a physiotherapy clinic. If I’m brutally honest I ran out of steam and wasn’t entirely convinced that the way I was practicing was the way for me or my patients. I was tired, uninspired and felt like I was constantly “selling” something. It was a pivotal moment for me as I knew that I loved acupuncture but couldn’t continue how I was. I decided to make a change to see where that took me, to see if there was a different way, although I had no clue as to what that might be. I ended up with a ticket to India for a year, to see if I could find a different way to practice for myself. At this point I heard about a group of volunteer acupuncturists heading to Sri Lanka to see if they could be of service. I joined this first trip, I can still remember the first hours at our outdoor clinic, hundreds of patients, chaotic, scary and absolutely magnificent! It completely lit me up, this was the essence of what I was looking for. To treat “freely”
I then became a founding member of World Medicine and participated and led several trips to Sri Lanka. This was whilst travelling to and from India where I decided to look for a similar way to contribute. This led to my introduction to Odanadi, an incredible organisation which “rescues and rehabilitates people affected by exploitation”. With their support and guidance I set up an acupuncture service at the centre. We would set up in the big meeting room and allow people to come and go as they pleased, having treatment, lying on floor mats, up to x20 at a time. Again it was scary, chaotic and fun, with confidence and trust hard won. I had to adjust all my expectations of what a treatment was or wasn’t, what information I thought I needed from my patients compared to what they would share. I was there for 5 years and can truly say it was one of my greatest learning experiences and my greatest privilege. I was lucky enough to work with some people over a long term, others just once after they had been rescued and before they were moved elsewhere. It taught me to “get out of the way”, to apply my processes in the best way I can, within parameters that those before me set out, to hope that it is of some use and then move on. To respect that peoples stories, are their own. To stay in my lane, I’m a human being and an acupuncturist, I am not a psychologist.
After 5 wonderful years it just became time to come home.
E5 is a busy multi-bed clinic where treatments cost just £35, making acupuncture more easily available and affordable. What motivated you to build a clinic around this ethos and what has the experience, especially getting it off the ground, been like for you?
The motivation was based on my experience working in India and Sri Lanka and that, selfishly, it was a style and rhythm of practice that I enjoy, it suits me as a person and a practitioner. On returning from India I slipped back into the more common one-on-one pattern of treatment but it really didn’t suit me or my idea of the accessibility of acupuncture to a wider audience. In London I was inspired by people and businesses shaped around very simple and clear cut missions. An authenticity. That’s what I wanted, to work in a way that suited me, that served the patient at a much reduced rate and paid me enough. I explored the models that were in existence, groups in one room, in chairs etc., sliding scales, the POCA model I guess. But this didn’t sit quite right with me. I decided I wanted to have a confidently accessible fixed price and structure. Availability across the week, rather than the odd day and something between communal and private room model. With the help of an incredible craftsmen we came up with a series of wooden “pods”, which put you in the same room but separate. E5 initially was above a shop in this model for 2 years, it was noisy, chaotic and fun. Again! But it worked and people came. Two years later we moved into a permanent “shop|” on the high street and have been there ever sincere. We’ve never really advertised, it’s pretty much been word of mouth, which is lovely. In the early days I introduced myself to other local businesses and offered quite a lot of free sessions, normally one per business, I really recommend that. We are now open 7 days a week, with myself and 4 other practitioners. I have only practiced this way for the last 10 years.
It’s really interesting to hear how you found your way and built your clinic around your own personal style, and your values when it comes to the care you provide. As a client, I remember it being such a nice surprise to notice how calming it is to be treated alongside others in neighbouring treatment rooms. The sound of Gregorian chants definitely helped too!
You've mentioned to me before that you focus on simplicity in your clinic management with your team of four acupuncturists rotating between three treatment rooms. What is your set up like to allow you to manage the admin side of it?
Thank you, that’s lovely to hear and is exactly what we want to hear! The admin/management and me as a manager are all a continued work in progress. The aim is to allow us practitioners to arrive at the clinic, check our diaries, prep the rooms and just treat. On a perfect day, all bookings and payments are made, patients have filled out their intake forms and the practitioner can just practice. Just do what we enjoy with as little of the other stuff as possible. The aim is that we genuinely work as a team. Patients can only book online and choose who to see and when. We have always tried to create systems that support the practitioner. We have more recently changed our online booking system. The first one was great, this one is the next improvement. Intake and COVID forms sent automatically, online notes, instant health insurance receipts, online booking and payment only. All these things create a structure around the practitioner and patient, there’s a consistency to it. Then the practitioner can focus on the individual patient for their individual treatment. We try and strip away as much “padding” as possible and invest time and resources in the important stuff
What would you say to any practitioners thinking of setting up a multi-bed or community clinic, do you have any advice to share with them?
Do it! I would suggest, like anything, look at what’s out there. The models and systems, see what fits with you and what doesn’t. Don’t just replicate. I often look to other industries for inspiration, especially hospitality. They know how/how not to deal with people. It’s an individual thing, the E5 way definitely wouldn’t suit every practitioner or every patient and that’s OK. One of the biggest things I was trying to avoid was a feeling of compromise or less than. That this was somehow of lesser therapeutic value than any other acupuncture session anywhere else.
And finally, the two questions we end all our interviews with. Firstly, are there specific symptoms or trends you are seeing more of in clinic lately, and how are you approaching these in treatment?
Unsurprisingly, anxiety. On a level that I’ve not experienced before. At points during the last years we were just seeing huge numbers of people with anxiety, panic attacks and disturbed sleep. Especially the disturbed sleep, even if it wasn’t the primary focus for a patient it was there. “Tired but wired”, again linked with the above. Lots of TMJ and plantar fasciitis! Lots of down regulation and settling for most of these patterns.
And then to bring us to a close; what's in store for you and E5 this year, anything you'd like to share with our community?
We’re just continuing, we’ve slowly been adding to the team. Given the time and energy I would like to get us involved in some externally based community projects…let’s see!
Thank you for sharing so generously, Sean!
The Circe Health Newsletter is a reader-supported publication. To receive all future editions, consider becoming a paid subscriber. Free subscribers will receive one monthly newsletter edition and paid subscribers will receive all premium content on Thursdays, keeping you in the know on all things going on across complementary healthcare. And as a thank you for being an early supporter, you’ll have the chance to sign up for the lowest subscription prices this July!
Paid subscribers will receive:
Every edition of the newsletter and access to our full archive
Behind-the-scenes practitioner interviews, deep-dives into trends, products, research reports and the latest market news
Interaction with our practitioner community