A profile of physiotherapy supply in Ireland. ESRI Research Bulletin, 2018/05

Physiotherapy is an important therapy service that is provided in acute (hospitals) and in non-acute (primary and community care, nursing homes etc.) settings. In order to understand where resources are most needed, policymakers need information on how many physiotherapists are working in Ireland and where they are located. However, there is a lack of information on acute and non-acute physiotherapy supply in Ireland across public and private settings, owing largely to the absence of a comprehensive central register. This makes it difficult not only to compare the availability of physiotherapists across counties in Ireland, but also to examine Irish supply in an international context. This paper quantifies the total supply of physiotherapists working in Ireland, disaggregated by their setting (acute and non-acute) and sector (public and private). In cases where individual physiotherapists work in different settings and sectors, we apportion their workload accordingly. This paper also estimates for each county the number of non-acute physiotherapists working in the community to find out where there is a low supply of therapists