Motivations for choosing an allied health profession career: findings from a scoping review

Fourteen professions are recognised as AHPs in England representing the third largest workforce in health and care. Although there is a need to significantly grow the AHP workforce in England, recruitment to many AHP courses is an issue. To increase course applications and encourage individuals to choose AHP careers, we need to understand the decision-making process in choosing an AHP career. The aim of this scoping review was to examine the nature and breadth of evidence internationally regarding the motivations for choosing an AHP career as well as any sources of influence and barriers. A comprehensive search identified 61 relevant studies. Findings revealed inconsistency in the evidence base and the literature focused on a select number of professions and countries. No relevant studies were found for three professions. Whilst many motivations and sources of influence were identified, barriers to entering an AHP career were explored less. The opportunity to help people was a key motivation with financially based motivations less important. Personal influences, such as a relative working in healthcare, were the most influential source to choosing this career pathway, media was the least. The main barrier to choosing an AHP career identified was a lack of awareness of the profession. There is a need to further investigate career choice motivations, sources of influence and barriers for all AHPs; gaining this knowledge will help tailor future healthcare career promotion and advice for each profession and assist with overall AHP recruitment

The role of the multi-professional consultant practitioner in supporting workforce transformation in the UK

There is an urgent need to transform health and social care to take a whole systems approach to meet health and social care need and address health inequalities in partnership with citizens and communities to focus on what matters to them. Pivotal to this is transformation of the healthcare workforce to develop the capabilities required and offer career progression and development opportunities to attract and retain staff. The contribution that multi professional consultant practice roles can make as system leaders to this challenge is highlighted across the five domains of multi-professional consultant level practice: 1) strategic and enabling leadership; 2) learning, developing, improving practices; 3) embedded research and inclusive evaluation; plus 4) process consultancy combined with 5) the credibility of professional expertise. The interdependence of these domains is a crucial part of the role, and its inbuilt flexibility is an asset which enables changing priorities and community needs to be addressed in partnership with people. The multi-professional skillset also contributes to developing effective cultures of learning at every level of the health and care system. This feature enables change to be embedded sustainably through drawing on and valuing the contribution of all and developing good places to work – instrumental in both workforce retention and innovation. Multi-professional consultant practice roles are an invaluable resource that needs to be at the forefront of system transformation ARTICLES AJPP 3 Vol 3, No2 (2022) and recognised as catalytic for achieving strategic priorities by commissioners. This paper provides three consultant level practice case studies in pharmacy, nursing, and allied health practice to illustrate impact and outcomes on population health priorities. There is an urgent need to invest in workforce education and development if the future vision for people centred integrated health and social care is to be realised and sustained in the longer term. This requires investment in commissioning consultant practitioner roles as systems leaders and creating attractive career progression and development frameworks for practitioners to progress from enhanced to advanced to consultant practitioner level roles

Ensuring an Essential Supply of Allied Health Professions (AHP) Placements: Using Crowdsourcing to Develop a National Call to Action

Sustainable growth in the Allied Health Professions (AHP) workforce is an ambition of the United Kingdom’s NHS Long Term Plan. However historically, access to good quality placements has been a barrier to increasing pre-registration training numbers. This article focuses on work carried out by Health Education England (HEE) to gain insights on the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on capacity. Using a pragmatic, embedded mixed-methods approach, insights were gathered using an online workshop, crowdsourcing, open for two weeks in the summer of 2020. AHP placement stakeholders could vote, share ideas or comment. Descriptive data were extracted, and comments made were analysed using inductive thematic analysis. Participants (N = 1,800) made over 8,500 comments. The themes identified included: diversity of placement opportunity, improved placement coordination, a more joined-up system, supervision models and educator capacity. Alongside considering the challenges to placement capacity, several areas of innovative practice owing to the pandemic were highlighted. Generated insights have shaped the aims and objectives of the Health Education (HEE) pre-registration AHP student practice learning programme for 2020/2021 and beyond. The COVID-19 pandemic has disrupted the delivery of AHP placements. In the absence of face-to-face activities, crowdsourcing provided an online data collection tool offering stakeholders an opportunity to engage with the placement capacity agenda and share learning. Findings have shaped the HEE approach to short-term placement recovery and long-term growth

Multicenter Diagnostic Evaluation of OnSite COVID-19 Rapid Test (CTK Biotech) among Symptomatic Individuals in Brazil and the United Kingdom

Evaluating rapid diagnostic tests in diverse populations is essential to improving diagnostic responses as it gives an indication of the accuracy in real-world scenarios. In the case of rapid diagnostic testing within this pandemic, lateral flow tests that meet the minimum requirements for sensitivity and specificity can play a key role in increasing testing capacity, allowing timely clinical management of those infected, and protecting health care systems

Effect of angiotensin-converting enzyme inhibitor and angiotensin receptor blocker initiation on organ support-free days in patients hospitalized with COVID-19

IMPORTANCE Overactivation of the renin-angiotensin system (RAS) may contribute to poor clinical outcomes in patients with COVID-19. Objective To determine whether angiotensin-converting enzyme (ACE) inhibitor or angiotensin receptor blocker (ARB) initiation improves outcomes in patients hospitalized for COVID-19. DESIGN, SETTING, AND PARTICIPANTS In an ongoing, adaptive platform randomized clinical trial, 721 critically ill and 58 non–critically ill hospitalized adults were randomized to receive an RAS inhibitor or control between March 16, 2021, and February 25, 2022, at 69 sites in 7 countries (final follow-up on June 1, 2022). INTERVENTIONS Patients were randomized to receive open-label initiation of an ACE inhibitor (n = 257), ARB (n = 248), ARB in combination with DMX-200 (a chemokine receptor-2 inhibitor; n = 10), or no RAS inhibitor (control; n = 264) for up to 10 days. MAIN OUTCOMES AND MEASURES The primary outcome was organ support–free days, a composite of hospital survival and days alive without cardiovascular or respiratory organ support through 21 days. The primary analysis was a bayesian cumulative logistic model. Odds ratios (ORs) greater than 1 represent improved outcomes. RESULTS On February 25, 2022, enrollment was discontinued due to safety concerns. Among 679 critically ill patients with available primary outcome data, the median age was 56 years and 239 participants (35.2%) were women. Median (IQR) organ support–free days among critically ill patients was 10 (–1 to 16) in the ACE inhibitor group (n = 231), 8 (–1 to 17) in the ARB group (n = 217), and 12 (0 to 17) in the control group (n = 231) (median adjusted odds ratios of 0.77 [95% bayesian credible interval, 0.58-1.06] for improvement for ACE inhibitor and 0.76 [95% credible interval, 0.56-1.05] for ARB compared with control). The posterior probabilities that ACE inhibitors and ARBs worsened organ support–free days compared with control were 94.9% and 95.4%, respectively. Hospital survival occurred in 166 of 231 critically ill participants (71.9%) in the ACE inhibitor group, 152 of 217 (70.0%) in the ARB group, and 182 of 231 (78.8%) in the control group (posterior probabilities that ACE inhibitor and ARB worsened hospital survival compared with control were 95.3% and 98.1%, respectively). CONCLUSIONS AND RELEVANCE In this trial, among critically ill adults with COVID-19, initiation of an ACE inhibitor or ARB did not improve, and likely worsened, clinical outcomes. TRIAL REGISTRATION ClinicalTrials.gov Identifier: NCT0273570

Respiratory physiotherapy : an on-call survival guide/ Edit.: Beverley Harden (et al)

ix, 316 hal.: ill, tab.; 18 cm

Respiratory physiotherapy : an on-call survival guide/ Edit.: Beverley Harden (et al)

ix, 316 hal.: ill, tab.; 18 cm