The Chief Allied Health Professions Officer awards are a unique opportunity for Allied Health Professionals (AHPs), either nominated by their peers or by themselves, to receive recognition for their personal contributions towards delivery of exceptional care for patients.
For More information or nomination criteria see NHS Englands website
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:
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
NHS England and NHSI have produced a new guide to developing AHP Leaders.
This new interactive PDF resource shares the findings from a project thye have been working on to explore common factors which contribute to AHP leadership development. By combining trust executives’ expectations of AHP leadership, with individual accounts from chief AHP leaders (see also – ‘Investing in chief allied health professional leadership: insights from trust executives’), they have identified the common features that combine to create a platform and framework for AHP leadership at all levels and an extensive list of helpful resources, hints and tips.
It was developed to provide ideas and opportunities for aspiring AHP leaders and those who support the development of the AHP workforce, to ensure that the AHP workforce is developing the leaders required for the future.
guide will also be useful for:
It can be downloaded on the NHSI website: https://improvement.nhs.uk/resources/developing-allied-health-professional-leaders-guide. or can be downloaded by clicking here
Our Professional Affairs committee works hard to ensure P&O is represented on all of the relevant consultations in health care. This means that P&O is not forgotten and is including when commissioners are considering services
Some of our latest inclusions in national pathways this year include
The ‘AHP maternity care pathway’ consultation and AHPs in Care Homes
The committee alongside the executive also try to do their best to help our members make sense of complicated documentation a great example is the new MHRA Guidance Document
NHS Improvement & AHP colleagues have produced a joint supporting publication for the AHPs into Action programme for supporting healthcare in care home.
It is available at https://www.england.nhs.uk/ahp/ahps-into-action/ or can be downloaded here: Quick Guide AHPs Enhancing Health in care homes
This quick guide will support AHPs and service leaders to meet the priorities and ambitions for care home residents detailed in the NHS long term plan. The NHS long term plan details 4 strategic priorities for community health services, one of which was the roll out of the Enhancing Health in Care Homes Framework. The ambition includes a focus on nutrition and hydration and provision of support from the right professionals when care home residents have been unwell, including rehabilitation.
Moving Medicine, developed by the Faculty of Sport and Exercise Medicine UK in partnership with Public Health England and Sport England, is an online resource that has been developed to assist physical activity conversations between healthcare professionals and their patients by adopting a motivational interviewing framework and evidence-based recommendations specific to their condition.
They have developed a new module for lower limb amputees and are now seeking feedback regarding its content.
They would be grateful if you would follow the link below to review the module and take the time to complete a brief survey regarding it, in order for us to optimise the resource prior to it being formally launched. Please do this by 18th August.
https://www.surveymonkey.co.uk/r/6KLJHFC
To learn more about Moving Medicine and to view additional modules that are already freely available online please visit www.movingmedicine.ac.uk.