Playbook, physiotherapy clinic
When a physio complaint arrives with a symptom inside it
Most complaints in this trade are about a body rather than about a service. Somebody is worse after a session, and the message is simultaneously a complaint that needs a record and a clinical report that needs a person today.
Why this is not the general answer
The handling pattern for complaints holds across every trade. What follows is the part that does not.
- A physiotherapy complaint usually contains a live symptom, so it has two halves running at different speeds: the complaint, which follows a procedure, and the pain, which needs somebody clinical to hear about it now.
- Physiotherapists work under a protected title and appear on a statutory register, so there is a regulator that takes complaints directly, and a complaints procedure that hides that route reads badly the moment anybody finds it.
- Treatment here is hands on, often in a closed room with clothing moved or removed, so a complaint about conduct during a session is a different category from a complaint about a bill and cannot be queued behind one.
- The natural reassurance in this trade, that being sore after treatment is common, is a clinical statement, and an assistant offering it has both dismissed a complaint and given advice in the same sentence.
How it arrives
- my back is worse since the treatment
- i want to complain about my physiotherapist
- who regulates physiotherapists
- the physio hurt me during the session
- i was charged for a session i never had
- how do i complain about the treatment i had
What has to be indexed for this to work
| Your complaints procedure, with the stages and the timescales in it | Who receives a complaint, what happens at each stage and how long each takes. Quote it rather than summarise it, because a summary of a procedure is the sort of thing that gets argued about later. |
|---|---|
| The regulator and professional body routes, named | The register your physiotherapists are on, the body that holds it, and how somebody contacts it. Put it in your own document. A complainant who has to go and find it themselves arrives there angrier. |
| Who reviews a clinical concern as opposed to an administrative one | The named role for each. A complaint that treatment caused harm needs a clinician in the chain, and saying so in the procedure is what makes the handover credible. |
| How to report a concern about conduct in a treatment room | A direct route with a named recipient, separate from the general complaints inbox, and the fact that a chaperone can be requested for any appointment. |
The reply
I am sorry to hear that, and I want to get it to the right person rather than answer it myself. Our complaints procedure sets out who looks at it and how long that takes [1], and it also names the regulator you can go to directly if you would rather [2]. Leave me your name, an email and what happened, and it goes to the clinic today. If the pain has got significantly worse, or anything feels wrong, please speak to your doctor or an urgent care service rather than waiting for us.
It refuses to defend anybody, because a defence in the first minute is what turns a complaint into a formal one. Naming the regulator route unprompted costs nothing and signals that nothing is being managed away. The clinical line goes last and stays outside the complaint entirely, so that somebody who is actually unwell has a route that does not depend on the clinic reading its inbox.
Where it stops
The trigger. Any message saying a treatment caused harm, made symptoms worse, or that something happened in a treatment room. This is a handover on the first message, without questions.
This needs the clinic rather than me, and I do not want to slow it down. Give me your name, an email and what happened, and it goes straight to the person who handles complaints.
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 say that soreness or a flare up after treatment is normal, because that is clinical reassurance and it dismisses the complaint at the same time.
- Never say the treatment cannot have caused what the person describes.
- Never name a clinician, defend one, or comment on how a session was carried out.
- Never say whether a complaint will be upheld, or predict what a regulator would make of it.
Questions
- Should it apologise?
- It should be sorry the person is having a bad experience, and concede nothing about what happened. Those are different sentences, and the second one is not the assistant's to write.
- Why point at the regulator when we would rather resolve it ourselves?
- Because withholding it is the thing that gets quoted back at you. Publishing both routes and inviting the internal one first is a stronger position than looking as though you hoped nobody would ask.
- Can it take the complaint properly?
- It can take a name, an email and the account in the person's own words, and send that to whoever you nominate. It cannot log anything in a case system, and it must not tell somebody a case has been opened.
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 complaints in generalThe job is to route, not to resolve. Acknowledge without conceding, name the escalation route, and get it to a person fast.
- What a physio clinic is actually holding when it takes money up frontMoney taken before treatment at a physio clinic, and why an insurer will not pay the fee for a missed session.
- Putting a figure on rehab when nobody has assessed the patient yetCase managers, solicitors and employers want a rehab cost in writing. What can be estimated before an assessment.
- Two different documents, and the physio question that decides whichThe document an insurer needs, the receipt that must carry a registration number, and moving from insured to self pay.
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.