Australia’s health practitioner regulators, including the Physiotherapy Board of Australia (the Board), have issued a joint position statement reminding practitioners of the critical contribution they can make to Australia’s response to family violence. 

The statement recognises the role of regulators in addressing family violence and their collective effort to end family violence by supporting victim-survivors, setting clear expectations of health practitioners, taking regulatory action as appropriate and condemning all forms of family violence. 

Family violence has serious, harmful physical and psychological impacts on victim-survivors and its effects extend to families and communities. 

The psychological effects of family violence can be as significant and lasting as the physical effects. 

Family violence encompasses violence in a broad range of relationships and situations. 

Children experience family violence and its impacts, even if they do not experience the violence directly. 

Family violence includes, but is not limited to, coercive control, homicide, physical violence and abuse, sexual violence, emotional and psychological abuse, harassment and stalking, elder abuse, financial abuse, technology-related violence, social violence and spiritual violence. 

Physiotherapists play a key role in early detection, documenting incidents and supporting, referring and providing specialised treatment for people experiencing family violence. 

Physiotherapists should ensure that they respond sensitively, respectfully and safely to prevent further harm including through referring victim-survivors to specialist services where appropriate. 

The Board recognises that physiotherapists may themselves be victim-survivors of family violence and therefore also experiencing enduring harm, with a right to care and support. 

Health practitioners are legally required to report other health practitioners who have behaved in a way that constitutes notifiable conduct and places the public at risk. 

They must also comply with mandatory reporting of known or suspected child abuse and neglect. 

Physiotherapists have an obligation outlined in the shared Code of conduct to remain alert to patients who may be at risk and notify appropriate authorities. 

The Board understands the importance of ensuring that victim-survivors are not deterred from accessing health services. 

This is aligned with the paramount principle in the National Registration and Accreditation Scheme of protecting public safety as well as supporting public confidence in the safety of services provided by registered health practitioners. 

The Board expects physiotherapists to behave ethically, to be suitable to practise and to provide safe healthcare. 

Physiotherapists who engage in family violence significantly depart from these expectations and adversely impact the trust and confidence placed in them by the public. 

A physiotherapist who perpetrates family violence may be subject to a notification. 

Possible consequences may include conditions being imposed on their registration or suspension, cancellation or refusal of registration. 

The Board encourages any person who knows of a health practitioner engaging in family violence to inform the police and the relevant health practitioner regulator. 

A list of contact details for health practitioner regulators as well as for police, family violence information and support services are included in the joint position statement. 

>> Click here for more information on the Joint Position on Family Violence by Regulators of Health Practitioners and here to access the shared Code of conduct. 

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