Unexpected effects

A CSP pilot project to broadcast unexpected effects alerts is running from June to December 2008, to support communication to members working across the breadth of physiotherapy in all four countries, to ensure minimal risk of injury to patient or workforce.

An adverse incident is defined as an event which causes, or has the potential to cause, unexpected or unwanted effects involving the safety of patients, staff, users and other people and encompasses mistakes made by the practitioner.

The CSP is using the term unexpected effects to identify failure of technique or equipment when used correctly and appropriately and is concentrating the pilot on alerts relating to unexpected effects.

England and the devolved countries have formal processes for receiving and investigating reports of adverse events, many of which result in alerts. These are logged on the national body’s website and disseminated by email to the public bodies of the relevant country, but may not be published in other UK countries.

Those working outside the public bodies are not exposed to the same automatic communication service, so the CSP pilot provides an identified process and a central resource for all members to access for up to date information on alerts relating to the profession. It does not replace the reporting system at local and national level, nor does it infringe on the HPC regulatory role.

The CSP will use the iCSP, Frontline and CSP website to inform membership of alerts relating to physiotherapy. Members who become aware of alerts not included on the database are requested to contact the Léonie Dawson, Professional Adviser at the CSP with details: please email: dawsonl@csp.org.uk.

The pilot project will be reviewed in December to gauge its value to the profession.


This text on this page was last updated on 26 Jun 2008.