Benchmarking in rehabilitation: comparing physiotherapy services

This report presents outcome data from 3,176 consecutive prospective patients referred to physiotherapy for the treatment of soft tissue injuries. The results detailed here are part of a larger study collecting data from different NHS trusts in a benchmarking study. The Therapy Outcome Measure was used to collect data on each patient in four domains: Impairment, Disability/activity, Handicap/participation, and Distress/wellbeing on the entry and the exit from physiotherapy. The study concludes that patients do not have equal opportunity of accessing therapy for their specific condition according to their abilities and needs. Therapy provided in the Trusts did not produce similar changes in the patients’ abilities and some dimensions appeared to improve more significantly in some locations. Furthermore this study would suggest that there are no common criteria for discharge of patients with similar conditions from physiotherapy across the Trusts as measured by the Therapy Outcome Measure.