What about the AHPs in all of this?

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Given their vital role, why are there not more AHPs in the media at the moment?  Rob Yeldham of the Chartered Society of Physiotherapy asked recently. Someone else on Twitter praised nurses for their flexibility in taking on new roles in new specialties. Not a word about AHPs who are displaying just the same kind of flexibility and determination in their key treatment and rehabilitation work with COVID-19 patients.

For over 15 years our Advancing Healthcare awards for AHPs (Allied Health Professionals, of which there are 14 professional groups) and healthcare scientists have celebrated the crucial but often overlooked work of these health professionals. We have indeed often used that favourite tabloid phrase ‘unsung heroes.’ In this time of crisis when all health and social care staff are being so praised and appreciated, it’s important to ensure that the contribution of AHPs and healthcare scientists is understood and recognised.

Rachael Moses, a respiratory physiotherapist and a leading light on Twitter, is the AHP lead at the London Nightingale hospital created at speed at the Excel conference centre. She was a winner in our 2018 Advancing Healthcare awards with her work to improve the lives of people with tracheostomies in the community. In her new role, she is finding time to focus on different members of her AHP team to celebrate their contribution and to show how they their work fits into this massive overall effort.

Physios, OTs, dietitians, speech and language therapists, radiographers, paramedics, ODPs – for the most part we can understand what part they play in the hospital treatment and rehabilitation of COVID-19 patients (and we’ll focus more on them in our future blogs). But dramatherapists?  News has come from one ICU that dramatherapists were in the unit supporting staff and patients by making phone calls to families and creating 4louis memory boxes to help bereaved relatives. They have adapted the boxes (originally created after a baby or child has died) to include messages from staff who cared for the patient. Adapting their skills and creativity to support others – we’d expect nothing less of these professionals.

We’ll be doing our bit here at Chamberlain Dunn to focus on the work of AHPs and healthcare scientists and their response to the COVID-19 crisis in the coming weeks.

 

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