Fitness to Practise—When Physiotherapists are Dealing with Personal Health Challenges
Sometimes a physiotherapist may be dealing with a health challenge that affects their ability to safely and effectively practice. Often, the physiotherapist will limit their own practice or may stop practicing all together until they are better.
However, if a physiotherapist is too sick to realize that they should not be practicing, the College must get involved.
The College learns of these concerns from employers, colleagues, family members or the physiotherapist themselves. Employers are required by law to report this information to the College. It is a mandatory report. The College’s role is to make certain that the physiotherapist is able to practice safely and is not putting patients at risk.
Learn More about Mandatory Reporting
What Happens When the College Learns about these Kinds of Situations
If the concerns are very serious and the public could be at risk, the College has two options:
- the physiotherapist could be suspended from practice
- the physiotherapist could have their practice immediately restricted. In these kinds of cases, the physiotherapist is informed about what is happening and given the opportunity to provide the College with feedback and additional information.
The College will gather information from a number of people to get a better understanding of what is happening. With the permission of the physiotherapist, the College may also get information from members of the physiotherapist’s health care team, their employer and their family members for example.
If there are Concerns about the Physiotherapists Ability to Practice Safely
The physiotherapist may be asked to and agree to restrict their practice. If the PT does not agree to this, a formal health inquiry will begin. A Health Inquiry Panel made up of physiotherapists and government appointed public members make up the Panel.
During this process, a Health Inquiry Panel will be given additional information and they may require the physiotherapist meet a specialist chosen by the College. And, the physiotherapist may be asked to meet with the Health Inquiry Panel members in person. Once the information gathering process is complete, the physiotherapist will be given all of the information the College received and the PT can make a written submission to the College.
Options
When the Panel has enough information, they will make a decision about what needs to happen in regards to the physiotherapist and their ability to practice. Sometimes they might ask the physiotherapist to do things like seek treatment, attend a program or have a workplace supervisor. If the physiotherapist does not agree to the proposed plan, the Panel can refer the physiotherapist to the College’s Fitness to Practise Committee for a hearing.
The hearing process is very similar to what happens in a court. However, because of the sensitive nature of the information being discussed, these hearings are not open to the public unless the physiotherapist requests it.
At the end of the hearing, the Committee may revoke (take away) the physiotherapist’s Certificate of Registration (ability to practice as a PT), suspend the physiotherapist or restrict the physiotherapist’s ability to practice.
Hearing outcomes are available on the Public Register. Specific details about the physiotherapist health condition are not publicly available.
Visit the Public Register
What do you need to know and do?
To learn more about your mandatory reporting obligations or how the College can support physiotherapists dealing with health challenges, contact the College at
investigations@collegept.org or 416-591-3828 ext. 227 or 1-800-583-5885 ext. 227
Email investigations@collegept.org