NHS trusts lack maternity-cover funding in 49% of cases

NHS trusts in England lacked dedicated funding or overspend policies for maternity cover in 49% of responses to Chartered Society of Physiotherapy freedom-of-information requests, The Guardian reported on Nov. 8.

The gap matters because maternity-cover arrangements were less likely to include physiotherapists: 22% of trusts said their cover did not extend to physiotherapy staff, compared with 9% for nursing posts.

The Chartered Society of Physiotherapy said the findings point to a planning problem in services already under pressure. Women make up about 79% of the NHS physiotherapy workforce, making predictable maternity absences a material staffing issue for that profession.

“When a physiotherapist goes on maternity leave, the patients needing treatment don’t disappear. Without cover, already overstretched colleagues are left trying to absorb the workload, potentially leaving patients waiting longer for the rehabilitation they need,” Ash James, the CSP’s director of practice and development, said.

James said the findings sat alongside “recruitment freezes, disappearing posts and growing demand for care,” and called for maternity-cover arrangements to be available fairly across clinical professions. The CSP also called for action on recruitment freezes and physiotherapy staffing shortages.

The issue is not limited to staff budgets. The Guardian cited earlier CSP research suggesting that stroke patients and others needing intensive physiotherapy were receiving poorer care because hospitals lacked adequate rehabilitation space and equipment.

In that earlier CSP survey of more than 2,000 members, four out of 10 NHS physiotherapy staff had lost or expected to lose dedicated rehabilitation space. Six out of 10 said rooms had been taken over by other clinical teams, with some attributing the change to funding limits or management priorities.

Alastair Henderson, chair of the Patients’ Association, said gaps in cover affect patients directly. “When services are already stretched, losing staff without adequate replacement can mean longer waits for treatment and rehabilitation, less access to specialist expertise and greater pressure on remaining teams,” he said.

The freedom-of-information exercise identifies whether trusts had dedicated budgets or permission to overspend for maternity cover. It does not measure the size of staffing shortfalls, quantify patient delays or show whether individual trusts used other arrangements to manage absences.

The findings add to wider scrutiny of NHS capacity in England. Atlas360 reported on Nov. 6 that NHS England missed cancer waiting-time targets even as cancer registrations reached a record in 2024.

Source: news report, The Guardian Health, Nov. 8, 2026.

Atlas360 reports health research and does not provide medical advice.