Keeping an eye on the healthcare scientists

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We’ve looked recently at the work of various allied health professions and their response to COVID-19 but as always we’ve been keeping a close eye on the healthcare scientists, who’ve been rising to the challenge and it’s clear that many within the profession feel that their work often goes overlooked and that the connection that they have to their patients is underestimated.

Most people will have heard about the work of the pathology labs in the testing for COVID-19 but we may be forgiven for not knowing the full details of the 50+ specialisms of healthcare science. For the curious of mind you can find out more by following the Twitter feed of one of our Advancing Healthcare Awards finalists Basit Abdul, HCS Apprenticeships Coordinator for London and KSS at NHS England, who gives some great insights into, amongst others, respiratory physiology and clinical engineering, both professions playing a key part in the current situation.

Chris Hopkins, Head of Clinical Engineering at Hywel Dda Health Board nominated his team for Advancing Healthcare ESTEEM recognition:

‘In recognition of your hard work and extremely long hours, using your initiative, thinking outside of the box on many occasions and in terms of managing and sourcing much needed medical equipment for COVID-19.”

Also in Wales and nominated for ESTEEM recognition we’ve heard from Douglas Etheridge, Head of Clinical Technology, Swansea Bay Health Board, South West Wales Cancer Centre Team and his Radiotherapy Physics Treatment Planning team who led the change, almost overnight, to reconfigure the delivery of breast radiotherapy from 15 daily visits to 5 daily visits to improve women’s experience during this time.

From microbiology biomedical scientists in NHS Forth Valley to the teams at Great Ormond Street Hospital in London, across the UK biomedical scientists have risen to the testing challenge.   As the National School of Healthcare Science tells us in its article in the BMJ:

‘The role of the healthcare scientist has proven to be particularly vital to efforts against COVID-19 in the UK. These scientists are involved in services across all frontline areas: contributing to the processing of tests for COVID-19, decontaminating and managing ventilators, imaging patients and, so much more.’

Anas Nadir is a biomedical scientist working in blood transfusion and haematology and describes clearly his connection with his patients saying:

“ As a biomedical scientist we rarely meet the patients, and don’t often get updated about their well-being. But each of the thousands of samples we process every day is a patient. One that we may never set eyes upon. Despite that, we care for the patients too.”

Ever one to champion her profession, Jo Horne, Consultant Healthcare Scientist in GI histopathology and our IBMS Biomedical Scientist of the Year 2019 has created some promotional imagery to highlight biomedical scientists – clearly we need 50+ versions of this from now on. To share your stories and celebrate the work of your profession please consider nominating for the Advancing Healthcare Esteem scheme.

 

 

 

 

 

 

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