The British Association of Prosthetists and Orthotists

News

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Scottish AHPs – TURAS

Allied Health Professional (AHP) Professional Portfolio

NHS Education for Scotland (NES) have now launched the AHP Professional Portfolio on the TURAS platform.

The AHP Professional Portfolio is an online resource for AHPs to record and store their evidence for continuing professional development (CPD).  The tool has some fantastic templates for recording reflective practice, feedback and support and supervision.  It is designed to help you develop a portfolio of evidence to support appraisal, planning career development and HCPC audit.

The tool is for all AHPs in Scotland, including the NHS, Social Care, Education, Voluntary and Independent Sectors.

 

Features of the AHP Professional Portfolio:

Personal Profile
Record information about your professional, employment, career, development and achievements.
Your professional profile can be used for a number of purposes

  • to keep your profile up to date and in one place
  • to help develop a CV
  • to have information ready to help complete an application form
  • to demonstrate your achievements to your manager or supervisor
  • to review your profile to identify gaps in your development or areas of interest
  • to help you consider your career aspirations and plan your professional journey

Evidence
This section allows you to keep an unlimited record of all your CPD activities in chronological order, there are also templates for reflective practice and support and supervision and a tool to receive feedback.

Uploaded Documents
A great space to store any supporting documents, photographs, audio files etc which support your CPD activities

Share Packs
An innovative feature is the Share Pack function which allows you to collate and share your evidence from all parts of your portfolio with others using a web link.
Share Packs can be used to:

  • Share evidence in support of your personal development plan (PDP)
  • Share evidence with your lecturer, educator or supervisor to show how you have made progress towards or met the requirements of an educational course
  • Create a CV to assist when you apply for a new role or job or to review your own career

Share Packs are best viewed online to enable any uploaded documents to be easily viewed.

 

You can register for free, if you do not already have a TURAS account, go to https://turasnmportfolio.nes.nhs.scot/

 

For those who already have a TURAS log in you can add the AHP Professional Portfolio application by clicking on the ‘add application’ link on the TURAS Dashboard page and choosing Professional Portfolio

https://turasdashboard.nes.nhs.scot/

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Health Inequalities in England: The Marmot Review 10 years on

Health Inequalities in England: The Marmot Review 10 years on

On the 24th of February Professor Sir Michael Marmot and the Institute of Health Equity published ‘Health Equity in England: The Marmot Review 10 years on’[i]. This article highlights the key messages in the review report.

In the 2010 Marmot Review ‘Fair Society Healthy Lives’[ii]  Marmot shone a light on health inequalities in England highlighting that those living in the poorest neighbourhoods would on average die seven years earlier than people living in the richest areas and not only would they die sooner they would spend more of their lives with disability. The original report provided six recommendations to reduce health inequalities with a strong focus on social justice. The recommendations included giving children the best start in life and acting across all the social determinants of health including education, occupation, income, home and communities.

The 10 years on review shows that over the last decade there has been a deterioration in health and a widening of health inequalities.

Since 2010 life expectancy in England has stalled; this has not happened since at least 1900.  Life expectancy follows the social gradient in that the more deprived the area the shorter the life expectancy; this gradient has become steeper meaning that inequalities in life expectancy have increased and this is most prominent in women.

The gradient in healthy life expectancy is steeper than that of life expectancy which means that people in more deprived areas spend more of their shorter lives in ill-health than those in less deprived areas.

There are regional differences in life expectancy particularly amongst people living in the more deprived areas; so that deprived people in the North East have a poorer life expectancy than deprived people in London.

Marmot highlights that to reduce health inequalities the same actions as stated in the original report are required:

  1. To give every child the best start in life
  2. To enable all children, young people and adults to maximise their capabilities and have control over their lives
  3. To create fair employment and good work for all
  4. To ensure a healthy standard of living for all
  5. To create and develop healthy and sustainable places and communities
  6. To strengthen the role and impact of ill-health prevention

The main recommendation from this most recent report is to the Prime Minister, to initiate an ambitious and world-leading health inequalities strategy and lead a Cabinet-level cross-departmental committee charged with its development and implementation.

We see the outcomes of health inequalities in clinical practice and we have a role to play in reducing the impact of health inequalities by being aware of the social determinants and inequalities within the populations we serve and ensuring our services are accessible and relevant to those communities who need them most.

[i] http://www.instituteofhealthequity.org/resources-reports/marmot-review-10-years-on

[ii] http://www.instituteofhealthequity.org/resources-reports/fair-society-healthy-lives-the-marmot-review

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Apprentiship Roadshow

Information Events:

Making AHP Apprenticeships happen

What to expect

  • Learn how apprenticeships are being implemented across the Allied Health Professions
  • Update on national procurement of training providers
  • Opportunity to work across the system to support the implementation of apprenticeships
  • Learn how to use apprenticeships to grow your own workforce

 

When, where and HOW

·        York, Double Tree by Hilton 28th January 2020

Email claire.farrelly@hee.nhs.uk

·        Birmingham, The Cube 6th February 2020

Email natasha.pisarski@heartofengland.nhs.uk

·        Taunton Rugby Club Thursday 27th February 2020

Email  Alexander.Websdale@hee.nhs.uk

·        Cambridge, Hilton City Centre 4th March 2020

Email  natasha.pisarski@heartofengland.nhs.uk

·        London,  De Vere West One, 9-10 Portland Place 10th March 2020

Email Devon.Puttick@hee.nhs.uk

 

ALL AHPS* WELCOME AND PLEASE BRING A LOCAL LEAD ON EDUCATION OR APPRENTICESHIPS

*AHPs | Allied Health Professions are: art therapists, dramatherapists, music therapists, chiropodists/podiatrists, dietitians, occupational therapists, operating department practitioners, orthoptists, osteopaths, prosthetists and orthotists, paramedics, physiotherapists, diagnostic radiographers, therapeutic radiographers, speech and language therapists

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#AllourHealth Student Week

#AllOurHealth are running a FAB new student week from the 20th-25th Jan

#AllOurHealth focuss on preventing illness, protecting health, and promoting wellbeing and how it applies to all of our roles. Our collective efforts of increasing our focus on these evidence based interventions really do make a huge difference in prevention illness, reducing premature death and reducing unacceptable health inequalities.

Public Health England’s (PHE) All Our Health framework is a call to action to all health and care professionals to embed prevention within their day to day practice. The All Our Health educational materials, tools and resources that have been developed to help health and care professionals make huge impacts in preventing illness, protecting health and promoting wellbeing.  The free and open access WeLearn #AllOurHealth Virtual Student event is a WeCommunities and PHE collaboration that uses social media to engage students about the All Our Health Framework and how it is relevant to their role

 To find out more about the student event, and about the wider programme of activity that is open to all health and care professionals (both qualified and students) click HERE > http://www.wecommunities.org/blogs/3526

And to register to take part in the WeLearn #AllOurHealth Virtual Student Event click HERE > http://www.wecommunities.org/blogs/3520

(Registration does require a Twitter account, you can find out how to sign up to Twitter HERE and how you can use this for CPD)

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SIHED Update

This is the January 2020 SIHED Update
GP surgery waiting rooms’ poster update

The I See The Difference (ISTD) campaign has 500 A3 posters entitled ‘Looking for a career that will make a difference?’ and 100,000 leaflets distributed in selected areas in national GP surgery waiting rooms. The campaign started in November 2019 and will continue until the end of February. So far (data received 20/12/19) we’ve had 4000 leaflets picked up by the public and expect awareness of AHPs to reach 5 million patients during this time. Here are some examples of feedback we have received so far from patients…

 

‘I think it’s a really interesting career idea’

‘Great timing as I am looking at podiatry’

‘Very good idea. I asked my doctor about it as I need a career change’

‘I will look at their website to find out more about it’

‘I questioned my doctor about it and researched it’

 

Did you see ISTD in The Times and The Guardian? 

Recently (in the run up to the UCAS deadline in January) we’ve been pushing our campaign further to increase our reach. Below are some examples of our campaign raising awareness of AHP careers in the Guardian (a digital banner ad) and The Times (an advertorial in print).

Health professionals are creative too!

CUREate is an Office for Students funded project that seeks to raise awareness of the health professions amongst those with creative backgrounds and encourage entry into university-level study.

Recently launched, CUREate seeks to prompt conversations about what the health and creative disciplines have in common. This is to challenge established notions about entry routes into health, both at an institutional and personal level, and encourage entry at a time of transformation.

The Cureate project has received funding from the Office for Students, SIHED (Strategic Interventions in Health Education Disciplines) programme’s Challenge Fund. This funding is to support existing or prospective providers of nursing, midwifery and allied health courses for innovative projects that would support the recruitment or delivery of these subjects.

Visit Cureate website 

Let’s recap…

The I See The Difference digital campaign attracted over 100,000 users to the website last year (from July 2019 onwards).

This year we will continue to build on this, with face to face events, our outreach efforts and by providing webinars to career advisors. As we start to think about the legacy of the project, we are keen to hear ideas for future use of resources, as well as digital content – can you help?

Let us know if you can help

Emily and Chris join the team

We’re pleased to welcome our new Outreach Officers, Emily and Chris, replacing Charlotte and Ali who were promoted into their new roles. Chris will be focusing his efforts on recruitment for Podiatry, Prosthetics and Orthotics across England. Emily is based at Sheffield University helping to raise awareness of Orthoptics across England.

Nursing students to receive £5000 payment a year

Before Christmas it was announced all nursing students on courses from September 2020 will receive a payment of at least £5,000 a year which they will not need to pay back. The funding will be given to all new and continuing degree-level nursing, midwifery and many allied health students from September 2020. It is expected to benefit more than 35,000 students every year. This is great news for students hoping to enrol onto AHP courses. The I See The Difference funding page will be going through some changes to reflect this news and provide more information about funding options.

Find out more

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CAHPR Research Practitioner Framework

CAHPR has recently published a framework of research practitioner competencies to support practitioners, managers, educators and leaders to review and plan practitioner roles, activity and support systems within a range of practice settings.

The framework describes the knowledge and skills required of allied health professionals (AHPs) working in research from basic competency to advanced and research leadership levels.

The generation and application of research should be embedded in health and social care practice in order to improve services, promote health, wellbeing and safety of service users, and to optimise the effective use of resources. This new resource offers a practical framework to support making research ‘core business’ to practice whilst also forging pathways and career progression for AHPs to become leaders in the field of applied health research.

The framework is available on the CAHPR website at: https://bit.ly/2sp2X4Z.