Making best use of allied health professionals

Properly using the skills of allied health professionals can aid productivity and improve the quality of care for patients, while potentially reducing costs.

And as care is shifted out of hospitals towards home and community settings, AHPs can be the key to discharging patients appropriately into the community, helping them to stay in their home environment and preventing unnecessary hospital admissions.

This HSJ webinar will look at how AHPs can be best deployed as part of a flexible workforce and what sort of competencies they have.

Who should watch

• commissioners
• AHP managers
• workforce planners and HR professionals
• chief operating officers and directorate managers

Issues addressed will include

• the advantages of taking a competency-based approach to the workforce, including AHPs
• how trusts and PCT provider arms can use their AHP workforce to best effect
• how commissioners can influence the use of AHPs in providing care
• how important flexibility is in the workforce

AHPs and their skills have often been underused in the NHS workforce but there is now increased interest in how their role in providing care can be enhanced.

Flexibility will be crucial in driving improvements in productivity for NHS organisations. Trusts and PCTs will increasingly face pressure to make the most of the competencies of their existing staff - and to ensure they are using the right staff in the right place at the right time. AHPs have a mix of generic skills, shared with other healthcare workers, and their own unique skills, which other staff groups can’t provide.

AHP staff are often on the interfaces of care - between the acute and the community sector, or health and social care - where using staff flexibly can make a significant difference to the patient experience and the cost of providing care.

The panel will include

• Candace Miller - Skills for Health
• Noel Plumridge, NHS consultant
• Lisa Hughes, allied health professions officer, DH