Last Thursday was the fourth AHPs Day, our annual opportunity to celebrate the incredible achievements and the massive impact of allied health professionals!
The BIOS social media accounts were busy all day, with over 11,000 impressions on Twitter and 3,000 on Facebook. Some highlights include a video from Sue Elliott, Head Orthoptist at Salisbury District Hospitals, sharing her story of working on orthoptics, and a Martha Waters, a former BIOS New Grad Rep, discussing her research project on how the use of smart phones can impact your eyesight. If you wanted a visual representation of all of this, check out this amazing tweet from WeAHPs, shows the full scale of AHPs Day on social media.
As always, social media was aflood with excellent videos and infographics demonstrating exactly what AHPs do, including our own video on ‘what is orthoptics?’ and this really nice visual representation of how double vision can be joined with a prism.
In a slightly unbelievable coincidence as far as BIOS is concerned, Thursday was also World Sight Day, so a great opportunity to highlight the role of orthoptists in preventing voidable sight loss. We joined with others around the globe to encourage people to make a commitment to #LoveYourEyes, with three and a half million people pledging to take an eye test or support others to look after their vision.
NHS Education for Scotland released a series of videos highlighting careers in the AHPs, including videos from orthoptist Laura on where orthoptists work and what skills orthoptists need. You can view the whole series of videos here.
In England, the day culminated in the annual Chief Allied Health Professions Officer’s (CAHPO) Awards, with the incredible news that orthoptist Rahilah Bukhari, of University Hospitals Coventry and Warwickshire NHS Trust, was awarded the AHP of the Year Award for 2021! Rahilah also won the Workforce Transformation Award for her work leading on the development of a unique risk-stratified, patient-focused, orthoptic-led acute paediatric eye service, enabling appropriate investigation, treatment and onward referral in a timely manner. We’d like to again say a huge congratulations to Rahilah, on what is an incredible achievement!
If you are interested in finding out more:
Read about the background to AHPs day here.
Download BIOS posters and infographics
New to social media? Read our beginner’s guide
Find out how else you can get involved …