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Celebrating Allied Health Professionals

14th October 2020

Today, Wednesday 14th October 2020, is the third annual Allied Healthcare Professionals (AHPs) Day.

As mainly degree level professions, AHPs are professionally autonomous practitioners. 13 of the 14 AHPs regulated by the Health and Care Professions Council (HCPC) and osteopaths are regulated by the General Osteopathic Council.

NHS Improvement defines the role of AHPs as: “Providing system-wide care to assess, treat, diagnose and discharge patients across social care, housing, education, and independent and voluntary sectors. AHPs are able to help manage patients’ care from birth to palliative care. They focus on prevention and improving health and wellbeing to maximise the potential for people to live full and active lives within their family circles, social networks, education/training and the workplace.”
(Source: NHS Improvement)

Of the 14 allied health professions, several members of staff at Medvivo are AHPs:

  • Paramedics
  • Occupational Therapists
  • Physiotherapists

Until recently our AHPs have predominantly worked in our Access to Care team who provide the professional single point of access for referral management, supporting the delivery of community services in Wiltshire and urgent care at home.

Members of our senior leadership team are also registered AHPs, including Chief Executive Officer, Liz Rugg, who is a Physiotherapist, Chief Operating Officer Michelle Reader, Associate Director of Quality Caroline Brown and Clinical Lead for Access to Care and Response, Lynn Cook, who are Paramedics.

Our AHPs have also been instrumental in some of our recent service improvements to support our integrated urgent care services. Most recently they have been directly involved in supporting and developing a new Clinical Responder role, for which we have recruited more AHPs.

Clinical Responders are non-prescribing clinicians who have a current professional registration. They provide unscheduled care with the support of senior clinicians to assess and treat patients. By having the Clinical Responders despatched to do further assessments with the patient, the senior clinician can work with them remotely to develop an appropriate management plan and agree appropriate actions.

Sam is an Occupational Therapist and works within the Medvivo Response Team. Monitoring patient care is a key part of Sam’s role as she carries out assessments for urgent care at home patients. She also provides training and support within the team so that they are able to enhance what the community teams provide in terms of crisis management for adult social care.

Photo of Sam“Being part of a wider team means we can work together to provide the most appropriate support for patients needing urgent care at home.” 

Sam, Occupation Therapist

AHP and Paramedic Lynn Cook who represents Medvivo on the BaNES, Swindon and Wiltshire AHP Council, says: “I am proud to be involved with the AHP Council. Allied Health Professionals work in many services and organisations, and having AHP leadership enables trusts and systems to improve capacity and capability of this workforce.

AHPs day is a grass roots opportunity for AHPs to come together to celebrate being part of the AHP family as the third largest healthcare workforce. This improves awareness of our roles and showcases the impact we have on patient care and support for integrated working with other services and organisations.”

Thank you to all AHPs and our staff who do such amazing work providing care and support to people in Bath and North East Somerset, Swindon and Wiltshire.

Happy AHPs Day!

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