Allied Health Professionals (AHPs)
Allied Health Professionals (AHPs) are the third largest clinical workforce in the NHS, covering 14 different professions. Their practice is integral to most clinical pathways. They work across organisational boundaries, providing solution-focused, goal-centred care to support patients’ independence.
AHPs in Cancer Care
Due to the breadth and reach of the workforce, AHP roles are involved at every stage of the journey from a patient who is facing a cancer diagnosis through to supporting those living with advanced disease.
From the diagnostic radiographers using imaging to exclude or diagnose cancer through to the Art, Music and Drama Therapists who work with patients to support their emotional wellbeing. All AHP professions have a significant role to play in the delivery of personalised care that enables each patient to achieve the best outcomes.
Health Education England Wessex has created some virtual reality 360 films to demonstrate a day in the life of some of the AHP Careers. (They work best with a VR headset if you have access to one.) You can meet our AHP Clinical Advisor Penny in the speech and language therapy film.
Find out more about AHP careers in cancer below:
Useful links
Penny, our AHP Clinical Advisor features in this immersive virtual reality 360 film about Speech and Language Therapy.
Physiotherapists: help maximise the patient’s potential in terms of functional ability and independence as well as gain relief from distressing symptoms.
Occupational Therapists: assist the patient and carers to maintain their maximum level of function and independence.
Operating Department Practitioners: work in Theatres providing clinical care during anaesthesia, surgery and in recovery of patients requiring surgery.
Diagnostic Radiographers: employ a range of techniques to produce high quality images to diagnose an injury or disease including cancer. Also key members of the breast screening programme.
Podiatrists: provide assessment, evaluation and foot care for a wide range of patients with a variety of long term and acute conditions.
Therapeutic Radiographers: play a vital role in the radiation therapy treatment of cancer. They help plan and deliver radiotherapy along with medical physicists.
Prosthetists and orthotists: prosthetists are able to design, select and fit the most appropriate prosthesis for each patient on an individual basis. Orthotists assess, fit and provide patient education for patients requiring orthotic support.
Orthoptists: assess, diagnose and treat eye movement defects due to cancer as well as other clinical conditions.
Speech and Language Therapists – specialise in the diagnosis and treatment of patients who have speech, language and or swallowing problems as a result of cancer.
Lymphoedema Practitioners: a health professional who has specialist post-graduate training in the prevention and management of lymphoedema. They are predominantly nurses, physiotherapists and occupational therapists and can also include Manual Lymph Drainage (MLD) therapists.
Paramedics can help people manage long-term conditions such as cancer and support people undergoing palliative care and end-of-life care.
Information on being a paramedic – Degrees and Courses – NHS Careers (healthcareers.nhs.uk)
Dietitians: advise on achieving optimal nutritional status, improve nutrition throughout the cancer patient’s journey and minimise discomfort through appropriate nutritional support.
Watch our latest webinar: Realising the potential and contribution of AHP’s in Acute Oncology (recorded November, 2023)
Leadership in the AHP Workforce:
Introducing June Davis, WCA AHP Consultant Advisor, working with Jane Winter, WCA Lead for Nursing and AHPs
June works as AHP consultant advisor with the WCA. The priorities of the role are to:
- Professionally lead the AHP and allied health support worker workforce in Wessex to realise their potential to transform care and treatment of people with cancer from diagnosis onwards
- Provide clinical leadership and oversight for the work undertaken by the AHP ICS advisors.
- Identify and increase the opportunities and awareness of AHPs in Wessex to choose to work with people with cancer i.e., developing career pathways that include working in cancer.
June has 31 years’ experience working in and with the NHS as a Dietitian, service and professional lead, general manager for a number of service areas within the acute setting and senior project lead for several large scale healthcare change projects.
June has over 20 years’ experience working in Allied Health Professional senior leadership roles for large acute Trusts. These roles involved both the strategic and operational management of one of the largest therapy services in the UK, as well as being at the forefront of integrating research, service delivery and education across AHP services.
June has worked extensively with commissioners and service providers as AHP lead for cancer alliances to strengthen the role and contribution of AHPs. She has expertise in preparing and presenting business cases as well as generating and delivering service and workforce transformation working with and as a provider of health care services.
June has considerable experience in workforce transformation and development including designing, developing and delivering education and training to healthcare staff including the management of a wide variety of long term conditions, prehabilitation, rehabilitation, physical and mental health, public health and the importance of patient engagement.
June is a Director of Allied Health Solutions, Lead Allied Health Professions and Nursing Advisor for Macmillan Cancer Support and ACCEND co-lead.
Developing AHP Leaders: WCA Project 2021-2024
There has never been such a need to harness the AHPs workforce potential for transforming healthcare as documented in the NHS Long Term Plan and the Allied Health Professionals in Action: Using AHPs to transform Health, Care and Wellbeing report.
Successful outcomes will depend on effective leadership at all levels and across the entire AHP workforce. In Autumn 2021 we introduced a new leadership role; AHP ICS Advisors. Managed by our AHP Consultant Advisor, the five advisors became an invaluable asset across Wessex. Seconded one day per week they have influenced and championed the role of the Allied Health Professional in Cancer care, collaborating with partners across the Integrated Care Systems in Dorset, Hampshire and the Isle of Wight to provide strategic influence and leadership.
The AHP Advisors were asked to work across seven key themes, developing and building networks, influencing the system about the importance of AHPs in cancer care and helping to identify key priorities to drive current and future work plans. These project roles ceased March 2024 and the project evaluation can be found here:
Contact June Davis junedavis@alliedhealthsolutions.co.uk for further details.
AHP Education and Training
If you are an AHP working in cancer care or are interested in learning more about how you could support patients receiving treatment for or living with cancer please visit our Cancer Academy education page to see a range of training resources that may support your personal and professional development.
There is an opportunity to watch previous webinars here or to join up to our prehabilitation and rehabilitation webinar series now brought to you by Macmillan’s Centre of Clinical Expertise in collaboration with the Centre for Perioperative Care.
Wessex AHP Forum
Our Allied Health Professional Forum meets bi-annually and is for any AHPs across Wessex with an interest in and/or are working with people with cancer.
The forum aims to:
- Showcase innovations, best practice and workforce solutions
- Illustrate the spectrum of service models AHPs are involved in in cancer
- Provide peer support and enable connections across the region to be made
- Advise, support and inform the alliance about the most up to date interventions provided by AHPs in supporting people with cancer
You can be added to the circulation list to hear about future meetings by emailing wessexcanceralliance@wca.uhs.nhs.uk
Wessex AHP / CNS Symposiums
These are held quarterly – dates are available here. Check the individual events for the specific focus for that symposium. The symposiums provide an opportunity for the cancer AHP workforce to network with their nursing colleagues and support the development of an integrated cancer workforce across Wessex.
Cancer and wider workforce webinar series
The Care and Health Information Exchange
The Care and Health Information Exchange (CHIE) is a secure system which shares health and social care information from GP surgeries, hospitals, community and mental health, social services and others.
CHIE helps professionals across Hampshire, the Isle of Wight and surrounding areas provide safer and faster treatment by:
- Ensuring that patients only have to tell their story once
- Reducing delays to treatment. For example, by reducing the need to repeat blood tests
- Making sure the doctors, nurses and others involved in a persons’ care know about their medical history
- Identifying diseases that someone might be at increased risk of developing in the future.