Our monthly shout out goes to Leanne Horsley from Sherwood Forest Hospitals Trust and Sally Knapp from Nottinghamshire Healthcare Trust for their system leadership work with Allied Health Professionals (AHPs). AHPs include physiotherapists, occupational therapists (OT), therapeutic radiographers, podiatrists, paramedics and other professions in health and care.
Leanne and Sally have worked strategically and collaboratively with a range of AHP leads to:
- attract over £765,000 of investment through short term funding for specific projects
- lead staff development opportunities across seven different AHP groups
- grow practice placement capacity
- support four different professional apprenticeships helping unregistered staff take up new roles as AHPs
- lead the Nottinghamshire senior leadership team and OT system-wide integrated rotations with a suite of resources and blueprint for this to be replicated
- develop a toolkit for OT services that will be used nationally to establish innovative and robust rotations for newly qualified occupational therapists that encompass health and social care organisations, across physical and mental health settings
- produce and implement an AHP support worker development toolkit to help provide a full and accurate picture of the unregistered workforce, which is crucial for workforce deployment, planning and future staff development
- create an AHP educators’ community of practice to increase clinical placements in the private, independent and voluntary organisation sector
- the possibility of an AHP legacy mentor programme where experienced AHPs, usually in latter stages of their careers, provide coaching, mentoring and pastoral support to staff newly appointed into Health or social care
Suzanne Avington, Associate Director for AHPs at Nottinghamshire Healthcare Trust, said: “Leanne and Sally are forward thinking, proactive innovators. Their pursuits build on national AHP and health policy and direction which they continue to shape to the needs of the ICS. Their work and their approaches inherently reflect the three principles of the Integrated Care Strategy. They epitomise working across organisations, identifying, and acknowledging the diversity and unique offer of AHP workforce across health and social care to grow and develop a future generation of staff that are multiskilled and adaptable. With understanding and curiosity, they look to test how inclusive our offers are to educate and train staff in order to develop the capacity and capability of a diverse workforce that is reflective of the communities we serve.”