Preparing for the Next CSP Accreditation Cycle: What's Changing and How to Get Ahead
- Tess
- 1 day ago
- 6 min read
Practical guidance on aligning curricula and placement evidence with the new Physiotherapy Education Framework
If you lead or coordinate a pre-registration physiotherapy programme in the UK, September 2026 should already be circled on your calendar. That's when the CSP's new Physiotherapy Education Framework officially becomes the basis for all accreditation and re-accreditation decisions — replacing the legacy Learning and Development Principles and the 2011 Physiotherapy Framework that have guided programmes for over a decade.
The good news: this isn't a sudden cliff edge. Programme teams whose accreditation falls before September 2026 can already opt into the new framework early if they choose. But whether your next cycle is imminent or a few years away, now is the time to understand what's shifting, audit where you stand, and start building the evidence trail that will make your next accreditation event as smooth as possible.
What's actually changing?
The new framework was published in November 2025 and developed collaboratively with educators, clinicians, students, and placement providers. It moves away from a purely competency-mapping exercise toward something broader: a holistic description of what high-quality physiotherapy education looks like and the kind of graduate it should produce.
Where the previous approach centred on the Physiotherapy Framework's domains of behaviours, knowledge, and skills — mapped across six levels from support to expert — the new Education Framework is organised around seven interconnected areas that programme teams will need to address:
1. Programme philosophy and context — Your programme needs a clearly articulated educational philosophy. The CSP wants to see that you've thought deliberately about how people learn, not just what they learn, and that your curriculum prepares graduates to work adaptably across public, private, independent, and third-sector settings.
2. Programme aims, structure, and evaluation — Programmes should demonstrate built-in flexibility and a commitment to continuous improvement. The framework expects regular, meaningful evaluation cycles rather than treating quality assurance as a periodic box-ticking exercise.
3. Learning, teaching, and assessment strategies — There's a much stronger emphasis on learner-centred pedagogy, authentic assessment, diversity and inclusion, and developing students' capacity for lifelong learning. Assessment should feel relevant and realistic, not abstract.
4. Practice-based learning — This remains the centrepiece. The 1,000-hour requirement stays, but the framework now provides clearer guidance on how those hours should be structured. At least 650 hours must be in clinical settings, with roughly 25% coming through education, leadership, research, or simulation-based experiences. The framework explicitly supports the four pillars of practice — clinical, education, research, and leadership — and expects placements to build professional identity across all four.
5. Research and quality improvement — Graduates should leave not just as consumers of evidence but as people who can ask meaningful questions, conduct research ethically, and use data to drive improvement. The framework frames this as essential to tackling health inequalities and demonstrating the value of physiotherapy.
6. Programme and resource management — Staff-to-learner ratios are specified more concretely than before: ideally 1:15 to 1:20, with a hard ceiling of 1:20 for practical teaching. There's also a clear expectation that programme teams should reflect societal diversity and model the professional values they teach.
7. Health informatics and digital technologies — This is arguably the most notable addition. Graduates are expected to be confident using digital tools, understand the ethical dimensions of AI and data in healthcare, and be capable of leading digital innovation in practice. Digital inclusion — ensuring all students can access and use the technology required — is highlighted as essential.
The graduate profile is sharper
The framework defines six attributes that programmes should be cultivating in their graduates: adaptable professionals, critical thinkers, collaborative leaders, skilled clinicians, innovators, and person-centred practitioners.
This matters for accreditation because mapping exercises will need to demonstrate how your programme develops and assesses each of these attributes — not just clinical competence in isolation. If your current curriculum maps neatly to the old framework's domains but doesn't explicitly address, say, digital innovation or leadership across settings, that gap will need closing.
What this means for your evidence base
At the accreditation event, the CSP will still require meetings with senior management, practice educators, clinicians, student representatives, and service users. You'll still need to submit documentation at least six weeks beforehand, including mapping exercises — but now mapped against the new framework's seven areas and the updated graduate attributes rather than the 2011 framework.
The CSP also continues to require evidence of sustainable practice-based learning resourcing: tangible proof that you have sufficient placement capacity to support current and projected student numbers, with agreements, partnerships, or forecasts to back that up.
Here's where forward-thinking programme teams can get ahead.
Five things you can do now
1. Run a gap analysis against the seven framework areas
Take each of the seven areas and honestly assess where your programme already aligns and where it doesn't. The two areas most likely to reveal gaps for established programmes are health informatics and digital technologies (because it's new) and the expanded expectations around research and quality improvement. Don't wait until your accreditation timeline forces this exercise — doing it now gives you time to make genuine curriculum changes rather than cosmetic ones.
2. Rethink your placement evidence infrastructure
The framework's clearer breakdown of the 1,000 hours — with the 650-hour clinical minimum and the expectation that the remaining hours meaningfully cover education, leadership, research, and simulation — means you need a robust way to categorise, track, and evidence placement hours across all four pillars. If you're still relying on spreadsheets or disparate systems to log placement activity, this is the moment to consolidate.
The CSP encourages use of the Common Placement Assessment Form (CPAF) to promote consistency and quality. Having a digital system that can capture CPAF-aligned assessments, track hours by category, and generate the kind of aggregate evidence the accreditation panel will want to see is no longer a nice-to-have — it's becoming a practical necessity.
3. Embed digital literacy deliberately, not as an afterthought
Adding a single module on "digital health" won't satisfy the framework's expectations. The intent is that digital competence should be woven throughout the curriculum — in how students use data during placements, how they engage with telehealth and remote monitoring, and how they think critically about AI-assisted clinical decision-making. Start by auditing where digital skills already appear in your programme and identifying where they're conspicuously absent.
4. Strengthen your evaluation loops
The framework expects programmes to have genuine, ongoing evaluation mechanisms — not just end-of-module surveys. Think about how you capture feedback from placement providers, how you use assessment data to identify programme-level trends, and whether you can demonstrate a clear cycle of evaluation leading to tangible change. If your accreditation panel asks "show us an example of where evaluation data led you to change something," you want a compelling answer ready.
5. Engage your practice educators early
Practice educators are central to the accreditation event and to the framework's vision of placement quality. They'll be meeting with the CSP panel, and their perspective on how well your programme prepares students for practice carries significant weight. If your practice educators aren't yet familiar with the new framework — particularly the four-pillars model and the digital technology expectations — invest in briefing sessions now rather than scrambling closer to your event.
The bigger picture
It's worth stepping back and recognising what the CSP is signalling with this framework. The shift toward digital literacy, the emphasis on professional identity across four pillars rather than clinical skills alone, the expectation that programmes actively address health inequalities and diversity — these reflect where the profession is heading, not just where accreditation panels are looking.
Programmes that treat the new framework as a genuine opportunity to modernise, rather than a compliance hurdle, will find themselves better positioned not just for accreditation but for attracting students, retaining practice educator partnerships, and producing graduates who thrive in a rapidly changing NHS and independent sector.
The accreditation cycle comes around every five years, with flexibility between four and seven. That feels like a long runway — until it isn't. The programme teams who start their preparation now, while there's time to make meaningful changes rather than last-minute adjustments, are the ones who'll approach their next event with confidence.
If you're reviewing how your programme tracks competency development, placement hours, and assessment evidence across the four pillars, MyProgress is designed to support exactly this kind of longitudinal, competency-based tracking for healthcare education programmes. We'd be happy to show you how other physiotherapy programmes are preparing their evidence base for the new framework.
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