Investing in Chief Allied Health Professional Roles

The value of having a chief AHP in all trusts is recognised in the publication today of a new report, ‘Investing in chief allied health professional roles: insights from trust executives’.  Produced by NHS England and NHS Improvement, the report draws on the contributions from trust executives to show that once chief AHP leadership is in place, the value and contribution of the workforce is immediate.

Chief AHPs

In June 2018 NHS Improvement published ‘Leadership of allied health professionals: what exists and what matters’, an evaluation summary for trust boards and clinicians.  The evaluation report revealed wide variation in the way AHPs are led across the NHS in England, but where a chief AHP with strategic responsibility existed, improvement activity markedly benefited and AHPs had a higher profile.

Since then, the number of trusts with chief AHPs has continued to grow, demonstrating an appetite from the system for such roles. However, significant system-wide barriers still remain to creating these roles. Therefore, the follow up report and guide seeks to better understand these roles with insights from trust executives who had developed a chief AHP role within their organisation.

The guide contains:

• Questions for trusts to consider to about the potential benefits and common barriers to developing AHP leadership
• Key insights as to how those organisations are benefiting from dedicated chief AHP leadership, as well as the perceived challenges.

Orthoptists in Leadership Roles

The report and guide reflects one of the asks of our My Eyes My Orthoptist campaign. We are looking to encourage the removal of arbitrary barriers to promotion for orthoptists to ensure our profession is represented at all levels within the NHS. This is therefore a positive contribution, which we hope trusts will use to look to provide opportunity for AHPs to develop the skills and experience to become valuable members of the senior leadership team.

“We must do more to unleash the energy, insight and brilliance of AHPs”.

Simon Stevens, NHS CEO