Using The Body Navigator safely

The Body Navigator is a clinical reasoning support tool. Used as intended, it is a safe and appropriate resource for registered physiotherapists and allied health professionals. “As intended” matters, so here is plainly what that means.

What it does

The Body Navigator surfaces relevant considerations, associations, and specialist links to support your reasoning. It does not diagnose, it does not decide, and it is not a substitute for your assessment or your clinical judgement. Every output is something for you to weigh — not an instruction to follow. You remain the clinician, and clinical responsibility and accountability stay with you throughout.

How to use it safely

Patient data security is something we take seriously. A patient’s name entered in the dedicated name field is held separately in our own secure database in Europe and is not sent to our AI provider. The clinical case notes are processed by our AI provider (OpenAI) to power the tool’s features. Where a name appears within the notes themselves, or inside a letter or scan report you add, it forms part of that clinical text and is processed too — under our data processing agreement with OpenAI, that processing takes place in Europe, is encrypted, is not retained after processing, and is never used to train their models.

Treat what The Body Navigator surfaces as considerations to consider, checked against your own examination findings and clinical reasoning. It is at its most useful for surfacing things you may not have screened for — and at its least reliable if used as a source of answers to accept uncritically. If an output doesn’t fit the patient in front of you, trust your assessment. Where a presentation suggests serious or non-musculoskeletal pathology, your own referral judgement takes precedence over anything the tool surfaces.

How it works

The Body Navigator works in two parts.

The private database is the curated clinical knowledge — purpose-built, open to inspection and audit.

An advanced AI language model — currently GPT-5, from OpenAI, the same kind of technology behind tools like ChatGPT — acts as the engine that reads the relevant material from that database alongside the information you enter. Many sophisticated, private clinical reasoning prompts and pipeline maps written within the resource then tell the technology how to reason through the content returned. The tool then writes a clear, case-specific output.

Citations are tied strictly to the database; the model is instructed never to invent a reference, so anything cited is traceable to a curated source.

Because the reasoning and writing are done by the AI, the wording can vary between runs and it can occasionally miss or under-emphasise something relevant. That is why every output is meant to be reviewed by you — oversight is built into how the tool works, not bolted on.

The Body Navigator also includes an interactive chat, so you can interrogate a case and the knowledge base directly. By default the chat works the same grounded way — from the curated database and the information you enter. Where the knowledge base does not cover something you ask, the chat may draw on general clinical knowledge; when it does, it tells you, marking that content as “beyond the knowledge base” — general background, not from the curated database and not verified, for you to check before relying on it. Treat it as a prompt to weigh, not an answer to accept.

Limitations

The Body Navigator draws on the clinical literature that is available — and that literature is typically under-representative of some groups, including women, older adults, and neurodivergent and other under-researched populations. We audit for this, and the system is designed to flag uncertainty rather than imply false confidence, but you should weight outputs accordingly for these groups.

It supports reasoning across complex and unusual presentations, but it has not been validated as a standalone diagnostic system, and is not intended for use as one.

What we do to keep it safe

A private, purpose-built, auditable knowledge base — every source deliberately selected, traceable, and reference-verified.

Outputs generated from that curated knowledge, with safeguards that surface differentials and discourage simply confirming an assumed diagnosis.

Where the chat draws on general knowledge beyond the database, it is clearly flagged, kept general rather than specific to your patient, and monitored as part of our ongoing review.

Ongoing evaluation and monitoring of system behaviour, including when the underlying model changes.

Formal clinical risk management in line with the principles of DCB0129, overseen by a named Clinical Safety Officer.

Registration as a Class I medical device with the MHRA, and operation under UK GDPR.

Full regulatory, clinical safety, and data protection detail is on our Regulatory Information page (thebodynavigator.com/regulatory-detail/). Your patients’ data is handled under UK GDPR and the Data Protection Act 2018; see our Privacy Policy (thebodynavigator.com/privacy-policy/).

For your patients

When you use The Body Navigator with your own patients, you act as the data controller for their information, so certain responsibilities sit with you. The Platform is a tool you use in your own clinical practice. You are responsible for: (a) having a lawful basis under UK GDPR for entering patient information; (b) giving patients transparency information about your use of the Platform, including that some data may be processed by a third-party AI provider, possibly outside the UK under safeguards, per our Privacy Policy and DPA; (c) obtaining any patient consent required by your professional standards (including the CSP’s AI principles); (d) complying with your professional obligations (HCPC, CSP, or equivalent).

Suggested wording you can give patients: Your physiotherapist uses a digital tool, Body Navigator, to record and transcribe your consultation and to help organise clinical information. It supports their reasoning — it does not make decisions about your care. Some of your information may be processed by a third-party AI provider, possibly outside the UK, with safeguards in place. You can ask how it’s used or ask that recording not be used.

Your professional responsibility

The Body Navigator is designed to be used by registered professionals within their scope of practice. As with any clinical resource, you are responsible for interpreting its outputs, applying your own judgement, and making the clinical decisions. Used that way — as support for your reasoning rather than a replacement for it — it is a safe and valuable part of your practice.

Questions about clinical safety: office@thebodynavigator.com