This year marks 25 years of Allied Health Professions (AHPs) in Scotland.
As we celebrate AHP Day on 14 October, we’re recognising the contribution of the various teams across NHS Lanarkshire, and the impact they have on people of all ages, in this silver anniversary year.
Our AHPs are dietitians, occupational therapists, orthoptists, orthotists, paramedics, physiotherapists, podiatrists, speech and language therapists, spiritual care and staff wellbeing, and diagnostic radiographers. Many of them are marking the event this year.
Speech and Language Therapy (SLT) teams across NHS Lanarkshire are celebrating their achievements. SLT consists of speech and language therapists, assistants, assistant practitioners, administrative professionals and students. They support children, young people and adults to communicate, participate, eat, drink and swallow safely. Their work helps people live healthier, more independent lives and contributes to better outcomes across health, education and social care.
Communication underpins learning, relationships, wellbeing and participation. For children, strong communication skills influence educational success, mental health and future opportunities. For adults with learning disabilities, communication support promotes choice, independence and inclusion. Working closely with health, social care and third-sector partners, SLTs help people communicate effectively in their everyday lives and participate fully in their communities.
NHS Lanarkshire Podiatry supports people at every stage of their foot-health journey. Through Active Clinical Referral Triage (ACRT), people are directed to universal self-care, targeted self-management or specialist assessment and treatment, ensuring they receive the right care, in the right place, at the right time. The development of ACRT, online self-care resources and defined clinical pathways reflects the service’s innovation and impact.
The community teams bring together podiatry technicians, band 5 podiatrists, band 6 specialist podiatrists and advanced practitioner podiatrists, providing care through a structured clinical pathway and escalation model.
They continue to support staff to complete independent prescribing qualifications, enabling them to provide safe, person-centred care to the people of Lanarkshire. Many staff have also undertaken Masters-level postgraduate study in areas including advanced practice, diabetes and tissue viability, and MSK and orthopaedics.
The orthoptics team are celebrating the delivery of pre-school vision screening to all children in the NHS Lanarkshire area.
Orthoptists have developed extended and advanced practice roles across oaediatric ophthalmology, medical retina, neuro-ophthalmology and stroke, increasing clinical capacity, supporting ophthalmology workforce pressures, improving patient care and helping reduce waiting times.
The advanced practice stroke orthoptist has helped integrate the new NHS Lanarkshire Stroke Pathway for Vision, collaborating with the stroke team, AHP colleagues in stroke rehabilitation and community optometrists to provide joined-up care.
We continue to support paramedic student cross-sector placements across NHS Lanarkshire health and social care.
Since the BSc Paramedic Science course started in 2020 at UWS, we have supported more than 170 students to graduate and join the Scottish Ambulance Service.
If anyone would like to find out more about supporting cross-sector placements there is an in-person information session on Monday 23 November from 10am-noon. More information can be found on Paramedic Cross-Sector Placements (Sway) – Information, FAQs and online training links.
You can learn more about our other AHP teams:
Further AHP details can be found at the Turas AHP learning site.
