Chief AHP visit for Allied Health Professions Day | News
Chief AHP visit for Allied Health Professions Day
Chief Allied Health Professional (AHP) Jane Lovatt from Surrey Heartlands visited Guildford this week to meet our AHP teams. The visit coincided with our celebrations of Allied Health Professions Day, a national event to raise the profile of all the individual teams recognised as AHPs.
AHPs are the third-largest clinical workforce nationally and we have eight of the professions working within Royal Surrey Foundation Trust – which is a group of over 500 staff. The idea of the national day came from a dietician and speech and language therapist who wanted to start a social movement to champion the contribution of all the allied professions to patient care and public health.
Jane’s role is new to Surrey Heartlands with a responsibility for connecting the different professions, sharing best practice and recognising possible gaps for improvement. She visited a number of our AHP departments.
She said: “It was fabulous to meet some of the AHPs working there, I particularly enjoyed visiting the clinical areas, seeing and hearing the staff and how proud they are of their work.”
Jo Michie is Associate Director of Nursing for Diagnostic Clinical Support Services who helped organise AHP Day events across the Trust. She said: “It was really worthwhile having Jane as the new ICB Chief Allied Health Professional with us, it was a useful introduction to her role and to hear about her plans for the future to build and strengthen the voice of AHPs in our area.”
Our teams of physios, radiographers, radiotherapists, podiatrists, dieticians, ODPs, occupational therapists, paramedics, orthoptists and speech and language therapists were treated to thank you goodies and many of them took part in their own bake off competition.
The Radiotherapy Satellite Centre in Redhill had a tasty variety of entries to their bake off competition but the eventual winner was Sam with her timely pumpkin cake. Congratulations to all who took part.
Thanks to the Royal Surrey Charity for their support with AHP Day celebrations.