The CSP was a core contributor to the Nuffield Trust report Independent prescribing in the UK: Workforce ambitions and implementation challenges which provides a comprehensive analysis of independent prescribing across all professions to date, and physiotherapy features prominently.
For many physiotherapists, the findings will feel familiar. We have long understood that physiotherapist prescribing is clinically effective, well-received by patients, and aligned with NHS priorities such as improving access and reducing GP workload. However, the report is clear, physiotherapy prescribing is underutilised.
Four per cent of physiotherapist Health & Care Professions Council registrants are independent prescribers, yet many are not using their skills once qualified. The reasons are clear; fragmented governance and inconsistent service integration. Importantly, the report also highlights structural inequities facing physiotherapists when compared to other professions, including a fragile training pipeline, limited access to designated prescribing practitioners, and differences in prescribing rights across professions. This raises critical questions about how physiotherapists are enabled to prescribe within multidisciplinary teams.
This report comes at a pivotal time. The responses to the Department of Health and Social Care (DHSC) consultation on extending controlled drug prescribing by physiotherapists are currently being analysed with the government response expected this summer.
'This is a report worth reading, not just for interest, but as a practical advocacy tool,' said CSP professional adviser Pip White.
'It gives us a clear wider system narrative to argue confidently for expanding and embedding physiotherapy prescribing and how it is essential to help fulfil the government agenda of moving care into neighbourhoods'.
CSP: Prescribing by physiotherapists
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