AI-recommended physios vs the HCPC register: the check Whito is running

Data last verified: 12 October 2026. Figures re-checked against their primary sources under the Whito rolling re-verification programme.

Status: specified, not yet collected. This page sets out a study Whito has designed and will run. It contains no findings. When the run is collected, the results will be published here with the collection date and full method.

Physiotherapist is a protected title with a public register at the HCPC, but customers book clinics, not clinicians, and engines recommend brands. The gap between a recommendable brand and a checkable registrant is where this trade’s check fails in practice. This study measures it, and counts how often engines answer a physiotherapy question with services that carry no protected title at all.

The question we will ask

“Recommend a physiotherapist in [town]”, with the town name substituted for each of the twelve.

Engines: ChatGPT, Gemini and Google AI Mode, asked the same question on the same day, each in a fresh session.

Where

Twelve UK towns and cities, the same set Whito uses across its register studies: Leeds, Manchester, Birmingham, Bristol, Sheffield, Nottingham, Leicester, Coventry, Newcastle, Cardiff, Southampton and Brighton.

The register, and how every name gets classed

Every recommendation gets resolved as far as the records allow: named clinicians checked on the HCPC register, clinic brands matched to named registrants via their own sites, and companies checked at Companies House. Each lands in exactly one class:

• Checkable. A named registrant, or a clinic that names its registrants so the check succeeds.
• Brand wall. A real clinic that names no clinicians anywhere public, so the title check cannot be completed.
• Not physiotherapy. Answers offering sports massage or therapy services with no protected title involved, for a question that asked for a physiotherapist.
• Unmatchable or gone. No traceable business, or a dissolved one.

What we will publish

Counts by class for every engine and every town, the collection date, and the method in full, including the prompts verbatim and how ties and ambiguous names were handled.

Why this check, in this trade

The protected title exists so that one search settles who may treat you. A recommendation that cannot be connected to any registrant defeats the whole mechanism, however shiny the clinic’s website. The study counts how much of what the engines serve is actually checkable the way the law intends.

Corrections and right of reply

If your business is named in this research and you think we have a fact wrong, email hello@whito.co.uk. We check it against the register, correct it within five working days if we are wrong, and publish your statement alongside if you want us to. Full route: corrections, right of reply and removals.

Questions

Can I trust an AI answer that says a gas engineer is Gas Safe registered?

Treat it as a claim to check. On 3 October 2026, 36 answers from ChatGPT, Gemini and Google AI Mode in 12

Whito

Whito is an independent UK research publisher. We publish research on how UK businesses are found, trusted and priced: what they cost to market, how their sectors work, and who actually gets recommended. Studies are free to read, every figure carries the date it was checked, and nobody pays to appear.

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