These service standards describe parts of the physiotherapy service for which the organisation is responsible in order to maintain the safety and quality of services for patients, and an environment conducive to the safety of staff, and their continuing development. The standards provide a benchmark against which the service can be measured. They provide a framework for an organisation to review and improve its service provision. Implementation of these standards will require committed motivated and enthusiastic managers within the profession.

These standards are intended to apply to all physiotherapy services including those in the public and private sectors, large and small, and in all settings.

As with the core standards, these are not minimum standards, nor standards of excellence, but they are considered to be achievable in time. It is acknowledged that not all services will currently meet all of the standards, but they are judged to be measures that all services should aspire to as part of their professional responsibility to both patients and staff. In some circumstances, any necessary changes in service required to achieve the standards will be possible through normal management practices. Where there are organisational or financial barriers to implementation, for example limitations in the access to sources of evidence about effective practice through libraries and Internet facilities, the standards should be used to highlight the expectation of the European Region of WCPT that all services should be able to achieve all the standards. Systems need be put in place to facilitate achievement.

The Core and Service Standards documents are designed to complement each other. Some of the service standards refer to the need for physiotherapy services to have particular policies or systems, which will be the responsibility of the organisation to put in place. But, it will be the individual's responsibility to conform to any core standards that refer to those local policies or systems.

This is a useful exercise, the use of the accompanying audit tool will make the process more formal. This requires evidence (not always written evidence) that certain structures are in place.

All documents are available as download documents at the end of this document for free.

The documents about Audit Tool and Physiotherapy Service Standard you find in our DOWNLOAD-Section and here.

Download documents as PDF-File:

Audit Tool for use with European Core Standards of Physiotherapy Practice for free

European Benchmark Statement

Physiotherapy Service Standards