Take this chance to have your say
NHS England’s Chief Allied Health Professions Officer calls for maximum involvement as the AHPs Online Workshop on A Mandate for Change goes live:
A week ago I told of plans to engage the Allied Health Professions to co-create and shape the vision for the future.
Specifically, to form a national declaration, strategy and programme of work that will support and drive AHPs transformative role in England’s health and care system.
This is your chance to share views on how you can deliver future care in England – and this is for wherever you practice, not just the NHS. This is not just about the health service. It’s about local authorities, housing, private practices and the voluntary sectors too.
This is an exciting time for AHPs, never before have they been asked as a whole to be part of the discussion and decision making, and to co-create and co-own a collective vision.
I am delighted to inform you that today the virtual platform is open for AHPs to take part in the online workshop to share views on how collectively they can deliver future care in England. This is your chance to have a voice and build a mandate for change.
By following a simple registration process you can join the online workshop now and, as many times as you like during the next two weeks, offer your insight to two key questions.
There is also an option on the platform to invite your AHP colleagues. Please encourage colleagues to have a voice also. You will be able to share your views, look at the views of others and offer feedback by voting and commenting on their contributions. You will also be able to come back to the conversation at any time while the workshop is live, to check what others think of your ideas, and respond to queries or questions they may have.
This is the first stage of a multi staged approach to this work. The results of the initial workshop with AHPs will be presented at the Chief Allied Health Professions Officer Conference on the 23 June #CAHPO16 . Following which the online workshop will be opened again to engage wider stakeholder groups including, people receiving AHP services, carers, other health care professionals, commissioners etc.
Throughout this process contributions will be anonymised to ensure ideas are judged based on their merit rather than their author.
Your expertise is essential to shaping this conversation and I very much look forward to reading all your contributions online.
- You can follow Suzanne on Twitter at: @SuzanneRastrick
Professor Suzanne Rastrick OBE
Suzanne qualified as an Occupational Therapist from Oxford. Suzanne was the first Allied Health Professional (AHP) to hold a substantive Director of Nursing post in both provider and commissioning organisations. She became the Chief Executive of a Primary Care Trust, where a particular highlight was having leadership responsibility for delivering health resilience and health ‘blue light’ services during the Olympic sailing events held in Dorset in 2012. She subsequently gained authorisation for a large Clinical Commissioning Group, before moving to her current post with NHS England. She was appointed as Chief Allied Health Professions Officer for England in September 2014.
In 2017 Suzanne launched the first AHP strategy for England which has been recognised as ground-breaking in policy development from its use of crowdsourcing. Building on this, Suzanne published the second AHP strategy – ‘AHPs Deliver’ in June 2022. This iteration had a greater emphasis on patient, public voice and specifically the inclusion of those who may be digitally excluded along with communities who may find it difficult to connect with traditional consultation methods. The result is a national strategy crowdsourced from diverse populations for people and communities AHPs serve.
For over three decades, Suzanne has held non-executive portfolios outside of the NHS, including audit committee chair roles, predominantly in the housing and charitable sector. Suzanne was recognised as an Officer of the Order of the British Empire (OBE) in the Queen’s birthday honours list 2019. In 2023 Suzanne was awarded a Visiting Professor role at St George’s, University of London and at Oxford Brookes University.
Follow Suzanne on Twitter/X @SuzanneRastrick or Instagram @chief_ahp_officer_england