Playbook, physiotherapy clinic
Access questions from patients whose difficulty is brand new
Most people asking these questions have never had to before. They are six days post operative, or in a boot, or on crutches for the first time, and they are working out whether the appointment they have booked is physically possible.
Why this is not the general answer
The handling pattern for accessibility requests holds across every trade. What follows is the part that does not.
- The access need here is usually temporary and recent, so the person asking has no practice at it and does not know what to ask for, which means the material has to volunteer the answers.
- Treatment happens on a raised plinth, so whether the couch lowers, whether there is a step, and whether an assessment can be done seated or standing is the difference between a usable appointment and a wasted one.
- The rehab gym has its own problems: a step into the space, equipment spacing, and floor based exercises that assume somebody can get down and back up again.
- A chaperone or an accompanying person is an adjustment to be arranged in advance here, because it can change which room and which length of appointment is needed, not something to raise at the front desk on the day.
How it arrives
- can i get up your stairs on crutches
- does the treatment couch go down low
- is there a ground floor treatment room
- can i bring someone in with me to the session
- is the rehab gym accessible in a wheelchair
- can i be assessed without getting onto the bed
What has to be indexed for this to work
| The route in, step by step | Street door, stairs, flights, handrails, lift, door widths. Written as a description somebody can measure themselves against rather than as a claim that the building is accessible. |
|---|---|
| What each treatment room contains | Whether the couch is height adjustable, whether there is a ground floor room, and whether an assessment can be done without getting onto a plinth. Nobody publishes this and it is asked constantly. |
| Gym and class access | The way into the space, whether classes involve floor work, and whether exercises can be adapted for somebody who cannot get down to a mat. |
| How to request an adjustment before an appointment | The route, how much notice helps, and what can usually be arranged. Naming the notice period is what turns this from a hope into something the clinic can actually deliver. |
The reply
The clinic is up one flight from the street door and there is no lift [1]. We do have a ground floor room, and the couches in it are height adjustable, so ask for that when you book rather than on the day, since it depends what else is running [2]. If you would like somebody with you in the session, or a chaperone, that is fine, and it is worth saying in advance so the right room is set aside.
The building is described before anything is offered, because a promise made on top of an unknown staircase is worthless. The adjustment is real but routed through a booking rather than confirmed, since the assistant cannot see rooms or a rota. The chaperone is raised without waiting to be asked, which is the point of having this in writing at all.
Where it stops
The trigger. The visitor asks for a specific adjustment to an appointment they have already booked, or asks whether their own condition will manage the building.
I cannot arrange a room or change an appointment. Give me your name, an email and what you need, and the clinic will confirm what they can do before you come in.
It stops answering before it guesses, says who will pick it up, and asks for the one thing that makes a reply possible. Nothing about it reads as a dead end.
Never say this here
Out of bounds
- Never confirm that an adjustment has been made, because rooms and rotas are not visible to the assistant.
- Never say a described injury or condition will manage the stairs.
- Never say a chaperone will be available on a particular day.
- Never describe the clinic as accessible without saying what the route in actually involves.
Questions
- Why volunteer the chaperone line?
- Because hands on treatment with clothing moved makes people uncomfortable asking, and a chat window is where they find out it is allowed. Saying it first removes the need for anybody to raise it.
- Can it promise a ground floor room?
- No, and it should not try. It can say the room exists and that the request goes in at booking. An assistant that promises a room the clinic cannot free up has made the visit worse than saying nothing.
- Is couch height really worth documenting?
- Yes. For somebody who cannot climb onto a plinth it decides whether the appointment works, and it is the sort of detail every clinic knows and no clinic writes down.
Keep reading
- Everything for a physiotherapy clinicSession prices, referral rules and what to wear are safe to automate. Exercise advice and injury assessment are not.
- Handling accessibility requests in generalTwo different things arrive as one message. A published accessibility statement answers the first. The second is a request, and it needs a person.
- What can actually be deleted from a physiotherapy recordWhy most of a physiotherapy file cannot be erased on request, and what happens to a report already sent to an insurer.
- When a physio patient wants to stop rather than rescheduleEnding a prepaid block or a recurring rehab membership at a physio clinic, which is not the same as moving one session.
- One word, two requests, and only one of them is arithmeticTwo very different physio refund requests: sessions left in a prepaid block, and a course somebody says did not work.
Try it on your own material
Upload a document or point it at your site, paste one line of HTML, then ask it something only your business could answer.