A physiotherapist conducting a vocational assessment owes a duty to take reasonable steps to avoid the foreseeable risk of injury, including by postponing the assessment where the patient has recently undergone surgery and the surgeon has advised minimising manual handling. Merely adjusting weights used in the assessment is an inadequate response where the assessment includes exercises (such as crawling) that require the patient to bear their own body weight. An assessment of non-economic loss at 20% of a most extreme case was manifestly erroneous where the evidence showed a dramatic and permanent worsening of the plaintiff's condition from a position of improvement.
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