The risks outside your practice door

Imagine… your patient leaves the practice on a drizzly and dark winter night and slips where water has pooled, re-aggravating the injury you have been treating. Not only do you lose a loyal customer, they turn around and sue you for negligence.

Your duty of care to your patient doesn’t finish in the treatment room but extends to the entire premises. Whether leased or owned, as an occupier of a premises, any foreseeable risks to patients, visitors, or even employees could see you liable for damages if they are not addressed.

When you spend the day inside the practice treating patients, it may be easy to overlook the risks that exist outside. Next time you are outside or in the car park, pay attention to your surroundings, and to the potential risks to visitors of your practice. Consider:

• Is there any ground surface that is uneven or are there any potholes?
• After rain, does water pool in a walkway, or does the surface become slippery?
• Are there potentially dangerous overhanging tree branches?
• Is the car park area and walkway to the practice adequately lit?

This is particularly important in winter when there are less hours of daylight.

• Are there any blind spots for cars or pedestrians ?
• Are parking spaces, entrance and exit points, directions and pedestrian walkways clearly identified?
• Do patients have an unobstructed path to the practice?
• Does the premises provide safe access for all patients, including those with an impairment, ramps and rails?

You owe a duty of care to all visitors to your business premises, take this as seriously as you take you professional duty of care.

Visit Riskequip for Physiotherapists and take a questionnaire to self-assess your management of Public Liability risk.

Public Liability Insurance

When a person is injured and it is alleged that your business has breached its duty of care, your protection is provided in the form of public liability insurance.  If you have insurance with Guild,  public liability cover is either included along with professional indemnity cover as part of your combined liabilities insurance or as part of your business insurance policy.