Allied Health Professional Collaboratives

Accelerated Cluster Development is the Primary Care component of Place Based Care, delivered through Professional Collaboratives and Clusters.

Professional Collaboratives are the mechanisms by which AHPs and others, come together within their profession specific groups across a cluster footprint, to consider how they respond to Regional Population Needs Assessments (RPNAs); consider the quality of their service offer, and look at how they respond to national strategy for their respective profession. Designing local solutions based upon their detailed knowledge and expertise.

AHP Professional Collaboratives provide the architecture to explore and develop workforce plans that deliver the high quality and high value services needed to deliver seamless care and support population need by:

• Ensuring coordinated and strong AHP leadership at all levels of geographical operation from cluster and pan cluster/locality level, through to Regional Partnership Board.
• Bringing AHPs together to look at the needs of their local population, influencing clinical pathways and addressing inequalities
• Supporting a focus on how we look at our AHP workforce in totality, how we optimise its utilisation against informed and agreed priorities, and support these from a collaborative AHP perspective.
• Providing an understanding of the expertise, value, and impact AHPs offer, and in conjunction with other Professional Collaboratives, influence how they and other professionals work collaboratively, for the individual, their family, and the local community.

AHP Professional Collaboratives cross boundaries within organisations and all sectors related to health and well-being. To do this there needs to be a shared vision of what an AHP Professional Collaborative is and what support is required in order to operationalise the concept into a functioning group.

Following on from workshops as part of SPPC National ACD Launch Event, in June 2022 a National AHP Professional Collaborative workshop took place. To agree a shared vision and national agreement on how the AHP Professional Collaboratives will function. 

Following the National AHP Professional Collaborative workshop, it was agreed that 7 Regional workshops would be held in each of the health board areas to develop the thinking around the introduction of AHP Professional Collaboratives. The agreed purpose of the workshops was to:

• Build on discussions in the national workshop and to further inform the national picture.
• Support local operationalisation of the AHP Professional Collaborative in each of the health board areas.
• Agree a plan and next steps to get the AHP Professional Collaborative in place, and to identify how the AHP profession will feed into the Clusters and Pan Cluster Planning Groups (PCPGs).

Key themes from the National AHP Professional Collaborative workshop:

• Influence: the way in which services are planned and delivered and the importance of being able to highlight the skills and roles covered by AHPs and how these can contribute to improved outcomes for our population.
• Collaboration: Across the 13 professions as well as collaboration with other primary care professions. Rebalancing so not one profession dominant  
• Recognition:  benefit in bringing AHPs together and ensuring AHPs are seen as an equal partner around the table at cluster level.
• Engagement:  within the AHP family, and across the other primary care professions. Noting there can be professional AHP silos, and sometimes a lack of understanding each other’s roles in terms of value and impact. Also, consideration re inclusion of wider professions i.e., audiology, visual & hearing impairment rehab officers
• Equal voice: There is a need to work on the one AHP voice and consider the need for expansion in the number of generic AHP leaders to provide representation across Wales.

Key requirements that were identified from the national workshop:

• Meetings with Purpose
• Clear structure, with clear and achievable outcomes as a result of collaboration
• Open and honest communication based upon a shared vison and objectives
• Work based on population needs assessments, with person-centred collaborative care at the centre
• Interventions and services backed up by evidence base and impact they have
• Being heard and influencing as a professional group with equal voice and contribution
• Inclusive representation - underpinned by leadership development and peer support
• Opportunity for AHP collaboratives across Wales to have some consistency in the key areas they should focus on e.g., prevention, reduction in inequalities and retention/satisfaction of AHPs working locally
• Developed and skilled workforce to participate in the collaboratives and cluster discussions
• Increasing AHPs understanding of what a professional collaborative is, so AHPs can understand the value and opportunities the collaborative brings

The Executive Directors of Therapies and Health Sciences (DoTHS) Peer Group was the point of contact for each regional AHP workshops’ membership, with nominations requested for AHP Leads across directorates and organisations, who will be supporting operationalisation of the regions AHP Professional Collaborative(s). Recognising the AHP Professional Collaborative is wider than Health Board AHP inclusion.

Guidance was provided concerning primary consideration for inclusion of the 13 AHPs regulated by the Health and Care Professions Council (HCPC), but that a flexibility of approach concerning additional professions based on localised need and what makes sense, would be appropriate. With regional workshops providing the opportunity to explore this.

Chairs of All Wales Heads of Adults' Services Group (AWASH) and All Wales Heads of Children's Services Group (AWHOCS) were contacted to raise awareness, engagement and support concerning their respective members. Recognising they are key stakeholders in AHP resource and activity, and their contribution to the development and operationalisation of regional AHP Professional Collaboratives is vitally important, in enabling them to inform decision-making and propose the most effective AHP solutions for the local context.

Regional Primary Care representative(s) with responsibility for coordinating ACD implementation, and Strategic Programme for Primary Care Fund implementation in each of the Health Boards were invited.

In addition to a representative from Health Education and Improvement Wales (HEIW) Primary & Community Care Education & Development Framework team. To ensure identified AHP learning, and development needs are included in the developing Primary Care Education Framework programme and the Gwella Leadership Resources specifically curated to support ACD. 

• AHP Professional Collaboratives National Overview Workshop Report 

It is recognised that each area will progress towards the same end goal but at a different pace, with local knowledge and experience guiding this work to achieve the most effective solutions.