Six physiotherapists. One clinic, Smith Street.

Nicky Suckle

Nicky brings over two decades of clinical experience to the team — a career that has spanned NHS hospital orthopaedics in the UK, private sports physiotherapy, and an unusual chapter that sets her apart from almost any other practitioner you will meet: a Masters in Veterinary Physiotherapy from The London Veterinary College, where she treated competitive horses, dogs and other animals alongside the same musculoskeletal principles that apply to human patients. Nicky continues to offer animal physiotherapy services through animalphysiotherapist.com.au.

She graduated from Glasgow Caledonian University in 2003 and began her career in hospital orthopaedics before establishing a private clinic focused on sports injuries. The decision to pursue veterinary physiotherapy in 2009 was driven by a curiosity about movement that was not bounded by species — and the rigour of applying physiotherapy principles to patients who cannot describe their symptoms turned out to sharpen her clinical observation skills considerably.

At Absolute Health, Nicky describes herself as a hands-on musculoskeletal physiotherapist. She uses manual therapy as the foundation of treatment — getting her hands on the restricted joints and overloaded soft tissues first — and builds exercise rehabilitation on top of that base. She works within the multidisciplinary model that defines the clinic, collaborating with the chiropractic team on cases that benefit from both disciplines.

Ben Clixby

Ben completed his physiotherapy degree at the University of Otago in 2022 — one of the Southern Hemisphere’s most respected physiotherapy schools, known for producing graduates with strong manual therapy and clinical reasoning foundations. After graduating, he worked in a busy private practice in southern New Zealand, where he managed the full spectrum of musculoskeletal presentations: acute sporting injuries, workers’ compensation cases, chronic pain presentations, and post-surgical rehabilitation.

His clinical approach is grounded in the combination that the research consistently supports: hands-on manual therapy to address the joint and soft tissue restrictions that are generating symptoms, combined with a specific and progressive exercise program to restore movement quality and prevent recurrence. He takes time to understand what each patient is actually trying to get back to — whether that is competitive sport, comfortable sleep, or a job that requires physical capacity — and designs the rehabilitation program around that goal.

Ben sees patients across a range of presentations including chronic neck pain and headaches, lower back and disc injuries, shoulder and knee conditions, and sports-related soft tissue injuries. Outside clinical work he plays guitar and football, and has a particular appreciation for the role physical activity plays in mental health as well as physical function.

Sofia Rizzo

Sofia graduated from the University of Buenos Aires in 2019 and brings over six years of clinical experience to the team — built across two countries and two very different healthcare systems. She practiced in Argentina following graduation before relocating to Germany, where she worked in a European private practice environment that demanded clinical precision and a high standard of exercise-based rehabilitation.

That international background gives Sofia a perspective on physiotherapy practice that is broader than practitioners who have only trained and worked in one system. Different training cultures emphasise different things: the Latin American tradition tends toward detailed manual therapy and movement analysis; the German clinical environment places significant emphasis on active exercise prescription and functional outcomes. Sofia draws from both.

Her clinical interests include musculoskeletal conditions across all body regions, sports-related soft tissue injuries, and chronic pain presentations. She enjoys working with both active patients pursuing sporting goals and older patients working toward independence and daily function — the approaches differ considerably, but the underlying principle of building genuine capacity rather than managing symptoms is the same.

She brings warmth and genuine patient connection to her appointments — an approach that is not incidental to good physiotherapy but integral to it, particularly for patients managing conditions that have already frustrated multiple previous treatment attempts.