New Orthotics Quality Improvement Collaborative Launched Today

Following our continued campaigning and pressure from within the Orthotics profession, today saw the launch of the Orthotics Improvement Collaborative. This is a 14-month project funded by NHS England and delivered by NHS Improvement. The project aims to improve the experience and outcomes of service users. A project team has been set up with the following people in the core group:

This project will see NHS Orthotics Services invited to participate the project, which is supported by a series of improvement events to empower service providers with improvement and development tools. Clinical teams shall gather simple data about their service, identify areas for improvement and make plans to address them using the tools taught by NHS Improvement. This is a great opportunity for service leads and clinicians to drive forward their ambitions for quality, boost their CVs and raise the profile of their services to their Trusts. Information and invitations shall be cascaded to services via  NOMaG. There are limited places on the collaborative so get in early for this fabulous career opportunity.

You can search Twitter for the Hashtag #QualityOrthotics to follow and contribute to the unfolding conversation.

NHS Improvement has today published Clinical leadership – a framework for action, endorsed by the Allied Health Professions Federation. The framework looks at approaches organisations can take to encourage and enable more clinicians from all disciplines to pursue senior strategic leadership positions.

This document has been developed by a cross-directorate project team within NHS Improvement, as part of a wider programme of work following recommendations from the Government’s report: Barriers and enablers for clinicians moving into senior leadership roles: review report to the SoS for H&SC.

The guide includes 3 examples of AHPs in strategic senior roles – including Rachel McKeown (@Rachel66Mckeown), Clare Boobyer-Jones (@ClareBoobyerMPH) and Shane DeGaris (@Shanedegaris), including their associated case studies. There are only 11 case examples in the whole document, so AHPs have a very high profile within this national document. The guide and framework also reaffirms the recommendation from the June 2018 document, ‘AHP Leadership in Trusts in England: What exists and what matters’, which asked Trust boards to consider appointing a senior strategic AHP lead.

The key messages:

• The NHS Long Term Plan highlights the importance of visible senior clinical leadership in enabling and assuring the delivery of high quality care both within organisations and in the new system architecture.
• Allied health professionals, doctors, midwives, nurses, pharmacists, psychologists, healthcare scientists and social workers can all potentially contribute to strategic leadership but we need to look at career structures and expectations that may currently stand in their way.
• The framework has been developed through discussions with clinicians exploring some of the barriers and enablers they identify when moving into senior leadership positions.
• We want organisations to do more to actively involve clinicians in their leadership groups.
• Evidence suggests that professionally diverse teams are better equipped to meet the complex challenges facing the NHS.
• NHS Improvement’s ‘Clinical leadership – a framework for action’ highlights approaches organisations can take to encourage clinicians from all disciplines to pursue senior leadership positions. The framework is accompanied by a range of case studies in which clinicians from a range of disciplines share their own experience of the journey to senior leadership roles. As you will see, the guide includes three specific AHP case studies.