December 7th 2020
Dear colleagues,
Supporting allied health professionals throughout the COVID-19
COVID-19 has been, and continues to be, a challenge for the entire UK population.
Thank you for the remarkable work you have done, are doing and will continue to do.
You were a testament to our professions during the first wave and we know you have
been working tirelessly to improve COVID and non-COVID care since.
During this second wave of the pandemic, as a result of the actions taken by the whole
population across all four nations, the initial peak of pressure has been significantly lower
than it would have been. However, it may well be prolonged throughout the winter period,
with wide local variation and fluctuation in cases, requiring a sustained and prolonged
response from all healthcare professionals.
We are confident allied health professionals (AHPs) are responding rapidly and
professionally and want to assure colleagues that we recognise this will once again
require temporary changes to practice, and that regulators and others have taken this
into account.
We recognise that some may find themselves working in unfamiliar circumstances or
working in clinical areas outside their usual practice for the benefit of patients and the
population as a whole.
We want AHPs, in partnership with patients, to use their professional judgement to
assess risk and to make sure people receive safe care, informed by the values and
principles set out in their professional standards. We expect you to follow your regulators’
guidance and use your judgement in applying the principles, taking account of the
realities of an emergency situation.
It is the responsibility of employers to ensure that clinicians working in their organisations
are supported to do this. They must bear in mind that clinicians may need to depart,
possibly significantly, from established procedures to care for patients in these
challenging but time-bound circumstances.
We expect employers, educational supervisors, professional bodies, national NHS and
health and social care organisations to be flexible in terms of their approach and the
expectations of routine requirements. Healthcare professional regulators including the
Health and Care Professions Council (HCPC) and the General Osteopathic Council
(GOsC) have already committed to consider factors relevant to the environment in which
the professional is working, and have already released a joint statement to explain this.
We are committed to ensuring the long-term prospects of AHPs in training and are
working with the education bodies in the four nations to maintain as far as possible
student education programmes. We urge you to support this and continue to offer
student placement opportunities wherever possible.
We all need to support one another during this time: mutual support makes this easier to
manage, personally as well as professionally.
Finally, we would like to thank you again. We are very proud of the response of the allied
health professions to this challenge, and we hope you are as well. It has been
exemplary.
Yours sincerely
AHPs across health and social care. 