Almost half of NHS trusts in England have no money set aside to cover staff on maternity leave, according to new analysis. Freedom of information requests by the Chartered Society of Physiotherapy found 49 per cent had neither a dedicated budget for maternity cover nor a policy allowing them to overspend on a replacement.

The shortfall does not fall evenly. Where cover does exist, 22 per cent of trusts said it did not extend to physiotherapy staff, against 9 per cent for nursing posts. The society noted women make up about 79 per cent of the NHS physiotherapy workforce, so the gap lands squarely on that profession.

Ash James, the society's director of practice and development, said it was deeply concerning that physiotherapy teams were far less likely than their nursing colleagues to have maternity cover funded. He warned patients still need treatment when a physiotherapist goes on leave, and overstretched colleagues must absorb the extra work. The society is calling on trusts to make cover available fairly across clinical professions, and on the government to lift recruitment freezes and invest in the physiotherapy workforce.

Patients' groups have backed the call. Alastair Henderson, chair of the Patients' Association, said gaps in cover can mean longer waits for treatment and rehabilitation, less access to specialist expertise and more pressure on the teams that remain. He called maternity leave one of the most predictable events in any workforce, and the failure to plan for it a planning failure, not an unavoidable surprise.

The findings add to earlier society research on rehabilitation space: four in ten physiotherapy staff had lost, or expected to lose, dedicated rooms, and six in ten of more than 2,000 members surveyed had seen rooms taken over by other teams. Read the original report in The Guardian.