Quality improvement in physiotherapy services

The purpose of this paper is to evaluate a process change in physiotherapy services and to explore factors that may have influenced the outcomes.

This is a multiple case study and information was gathered from eight physiotherapy teams over 24 months.

The process change was successfully implemented in six teams. It had a clear, positive effect on service quality provided to patients in three teams. Whilst quality also improved in three other teams, other issues make changes difficult to assess. Factors that enabled process change to be effective are suggested.

The findings are based on results achieved by only eight English teams.

This process change may be appropriate for other teams providing therapy services if attention is paid to potential enabling factors, and a learning approach is adopted to designing and introducing the change.

To the best of the authors’ knowledge, no other longitudinal process change study in therapy services has been published.