I hope that you’ve all keeping safe and well. Since my last piece there have been a lot of developments in Public Health (PH) despite all efforts being invested in the global pandemic. We had our first Public Health study day in August and I believe the first one to run online! We had very informative talks from Pam Worrall on MECC, followed by Kath Whitfield talking about embedding MECC in her conversations with patients during the pandemic and Rebecca Flynn sharing her experience of embedding Public Health in her practice as a new graduate. The feedback was excellent and we will be hosting a further online study day this year.
As ever the focus on Public health increases, as outlined in the NHS Long Term Plan to improve population health and reduce health inequalities. Consequently, I am currently involved in the development of a framework for ‘Advanced Clinical Practice (ACP) in Public Health (PH)’. The PH ACP role will bring a population health and prevention focus to the AHP’s clinical expertise and will enable PH to become embedded within clinical pathways, services or settings. In other news, Public Health England have been successful in a bid to HEE for expansion of Public Health placements. Therefore, there will be opportunities for pre-registration AHPs to undertake public health placements. A toolkit will be developed for AHPs to set up PH placements and there are plans for digitally matching public health placements with AHPs. This will not replace traditional orthoptic clinical placements but the purpose of PH placements is for the future workforce to develop a broad skill set to include leadership, population health management, effective communication and behaviour change skills. Talking of toolkits, don’t’ forget the ‘Embedding Public Health into Clinical Services programme’ launched in March 2020 to support leaders and service managers to guide their teams through the process of re-designing services to support prevention. If you have used the toolkit to embed prevention within your services please do contact me as PHE are looking for case studies to embed into the toolkit as currently there are only physiotherapy examples.
Now is a crucial time to have mindful conversations with our patients to look after the mental well-being of ourselves and others . PHE recently launched the new ‘Every Mind Matters’ campaign and I encourage individuals to use the Mind plan. Mental well-being and the prevention and management of long term conditions can be improved with physical activity. Free training for increasing physical activity advice to your patients is available from physical activity clinical champions. You could also apply to be a physical activity clinical champion as vacancies for this role will be advertised from June (email me for details).
Finally, orthoptists are eligible to take on the role as a vaccinator for Covid-19 under a Patient Group Direction (PGD). However, as it is outside the scope of an orthoptist, you will need to make sure you are covered by the Trust or Board indemnity. Also, don’t forget to get your Covid-19 vaccine offered in hospital vaccination hubs. Click here to access further information
Please do not hesitate to get in touch with me, if you need any help with matters relating to Public Health. You can also visit our page, here, and get involved by becoming a public health champion. Take care and stay safe.
Jigs Mehta
BIOS Public Health Lead
