Paramedics, physiotherapists and other Allied Health Professionals (AHPs) play a pivotal role in patients’ care and in helping to deliver our NHS Long Term Plan
The Allied Health Professions – for example paramedics, physios and speech therapists – are some of the most rewarding careers available, so it was great to hear the government demonstrate such a strong commitment to the AHP community by providing additional financial support.
In December 2019 the government announced that, from academic year 2020/21, many new and continuing student AHPs, nurses and midwives would receive a new financial support package to help with living costs.
Healthcare students in these disciplines on eligible pre-registration undergraduate and postgraduate courses at English universities, will benefit from an annual maintenance grant of at least £5,000 in the 2020/21 academic year, with up to £3,000 additional funding for students in certain areas, specialisms or with childcare responsibilities.
The government also confirmed that, for the first time, paramedic science students will be able to benefit from additional NHS funding whilst at university, recognising how important they are to be delivering the ambitions of the NHS Long Term Plan in a wider variety of clinical settings.
The government had previously advised that additional payments of up to £3,000 will be available for students in areas which are struggling to recruit, or to help students with childcare costs.
They have now confirmed there will be an additional £1,000 per academic year for students with childcare responsibilities and another £1,000 a year for new students on one of these pre-registration degree courses:
- Mental health nursing
- Learning disability nursing
- Radiography (diagnostic and therapeutic)
- Prosthetics and orthotics
- Orthoptics
- Podiatry
It’s great to see the government taking these grants seriously and targeting the funding support where it is particularly needed.
Students studying the following pre-registration allied health degree level courses are set to benefit from the funding:
- Dietetics
- Occupational therapy
- Operating department practitioner
- Orthoptics
- Orthotics and prosthetics
- Physiotherapy
- Podiatry
- Diagnostic radiography
- Therapeutic radiography
- Speech and language therapy
- Paramedicine
This funding will support ambitions to grow the AHP workforce that we have been developing as part of implementing the interim NHS People Plan, to meet the future requirements of health and care set out in the NHS Long Term Plan.
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