Nearly half of NHS hospital physiotherapists report losing rehabilitation space, survey finds

A member survey by the Chartered Society of Physiotherapy found 49% of members working in NHS hospitals report losing rehabilitation space, against 41% across all sectors combined [Audit/Data]. Among those reporting space loss, around 25% linked it to increased waiting lists and 56% linked it to increased patient disability. The CSP has released new advocacy resources for members alongside the survey, and named the New Hospital Programme building schedule as a specific concern.

This is member-reported survey data, not an independently audited national estate dataset, and the CSP does not report a breakdown of losses by individual trust or region — so the finding describes a professional perception of a national trend rather than a verified count of lost square footage.

Physiotherapy and rehabilitation space is a precondition for delivering the community-facing and inpatient rehabilitation capacity that discharge-to-assess and reablement pathways depend on. A reported, worsening loss of that space — with the profession’s own members linking it to rising waiting lists and disability — is a capacity constraint that new-build and estate-planning decisions should account for explicitly.