How do you onboard staff at a small physiotherapy practice?

Small practices tend to onboard by osmosis: the new person shadows for a day, is given a login that belongs to somebody else, and picks the rest up as they go. It works until it does not — usually at the point where a note cannot be attributed, or a patient gets two different sets of advice in the same week.

This is the shortest sequence that avoids both, and it takes about half a day of preparation.

Before day one

• Verify registration. Confirm the person's registration with the relevant council is current, and keep a record that you checked and when.
• Collect documents once. Identity, qualifications, registration certificate, bank details, emergency contact. Ask for everything at once rather than in five separate messages.
• Agree the terms in writing. Hours, pay, notice, and what happens to patient relationships if they leave. The last one is uncomfortable to raise later and easy to agree now.
• Create their system access before they arrive. Turning up to no login sets the tone for how organised the practice is.

Their own login, always

Sharing a login is the single most common shortcut in small practices and the one with the worst consequences. It matters for three reasons that have nothing to do with trust:

1. Attribution. A clinical note has to be attributable to the person who wrote it. If two people share an account, no note is.
2. Access control. An assistant does not need to see everything a lead therapist sees. Role-based access is only possible if roles map to accounts.
3. Leaving. When someone leaves, you disable their account. With a shared login you change a password and hope everyone gets the new one.

In Kinetiq, adding therapists and assistants is part of the plan rather than a per-seat charge, specifically so that cost is never the reason a practice shares a login.

The first week

Write the protocols down

Most small practices have protocols; few have them written. The test is simple: if your new therapist asks how you handle a first-visit low back pain assessment, is the answer a document or a conversation? A conversation is fine once. It is not fine as the mechanism by which a practice keeps consistent.

• Assessment structure for the conditions you see most — see how to write a case sheet.
• When to refer on, and to whom.
• Your cancellation, late arrival and payment policies, in the words staff should use.
• What gets escalated to you, and how quickly.
• How patient data is handled, and what is not allowed — personal devices, messaging apps, taking records home.

The paperwork that catches people out

• Registration verification with a record of when you checked and by whom.
• Written terms of engagement, whether the person is employed or working on a contract basis.
• Data handling. Anyone touching patient records should understand what they may and may not do with them. Under the Digital Personal Data Protection Act 2023, that responsibility sits with the practice, not with the individual.
• Access removal on exit. Add it to whatever checklist you use for leaving. It is forgotten far more often than it is done.

Once you have more than a handful of staff across more than one location, the paperwork above stops fitting in a folder and starts wanting a system — which is the point at which a platform with HR built in is worth a conversation.