Celebrating our Allied Health Professionals
Allied Health Professionals (AHP) Day took place on 14 October and colleagues across SE London took a moment to celebrate and acknowledge the amazing contribution AHPs make to people, families and communities in their daily lives.
We’re grateful to partners who have shared news and photos of their celebrations as part of the annual, national event (see a few examples here) but most importantly, wish to add our gratitude for everything that AHPs and AHP support staff do across our system.
AHPs is a large group of 14 talented professions, including Radiographers, Occupational Therapists and Paramedics and collectively, they make up around a third of our clinical workforce. AHPs work in every part of our health and care system providing compassionate, patient centred care from birth to the end of life. We were delighted to see that so many teams came together to mark the day.
This year’s national event theme was, AHPs – In the right place, at the right time, with the right skills. It’s a theme which spans all the critical work AHPs do, such as enabling people to get back to work, delivering rehabilitation following illness, surgery or trauma or teaching and supporting clients to manage a long term health condition. (You can find out more about the 14 diverse Allied Health Professions here – NHS England » Allied health professions.)
AHP Day not only celebrates the work of these staff but also seeks to raise awareness of the varied roles available, the multiple pathways into training and the opportunity of a rewarding career. These aims are supported in both the SE London (SEL) and national health and care workforce strategies, published this year.
The SEL ICS People Programme will be working with employers and the SEL AHP Council, to amplify partners’ training, recruitment and retention efforts to help ensure our AHPs and support worker workforce remain in the right place, at the right time, with the right skills, for those we care for. We look forward to sharing more about our collaborative working in SEL in the near future. In meantime, thanks again to this dynamic and valuable workforce group.
