I hope all of you have taken some time to rest and have time away from work over the summer. It has been an exhausting time for everyone working through a pandemic and planning recovery of services along with the additional challenges that this brings.
It is our BIOS and BOSTU AGMs on the 17th September and preparing the Chairs report has made me reflect on all the achievements that came about in 2019 for BIOS. It will seem strange running an AGM through a remote virtual platform but thankfully a resolution last year has made this possible. We could not have known that we would need to put this in place so quickly due to the Covid Pandemic. You are all very welcome to join us at the AGMs by booking via the website.
The first online CPD event was held on 26th August and run by our Public Health Lead, Dr Jigs Mehta. It was a well-attended and very informative session with some inspirational presentations about implementing MECC in the workplace. A fuller write up about the event will be published in a future edition of PV.
In addition to reflecting on the achievements of 2019 we have some very exciting news about future developments and associated funding.
You may have read this piece of news here, in which HEE announced a funding boost for clinical placements. We are delighted that our national bids were successful and BIOS has been awarded £100K to support recovery and growth for clinical education across the UK and ROI. Details of the expansion model and associated secondments will be released shortly. Huge thanks go to all involved in developing the bids but especially to Helen Davis, Jo Adeoye and Carly Hegarty.
The development of our non registered support staff has also been highlighted as a priority and gained funding from HEE to support the whole profession. I am delighted to be able to offer some part time seconded posts to support this work. The details are in this edition and have been sent out via email. We welcome applications from orthoptists who would like the opportunity to be part of this workstream and work with national stakeholders.
The BIOJ has passed the technical testing and can now be added to PubMed – this is a huge achievement and could not have been done without the hard work of our current BIOJ Editor, Dr Jill Carlton and the past BIOJ editors who have helped pave the way.
Julie and I continue to lobby for independent prescribing rights for orthoptists and have had scoping meetings with Shelagh Morris who you may remember was the deputy CAHPO. Shelagh has come out of retirement to support NHSe in the AHP scoping project for medicines mechanisms.
We do have another piece of good news and are just waiting on an official launch date but may we give some hints away at the AGM…so watch this space
Thank you to everyone who works tirelessly for BIOS/ BOSTU and represents members in whatever capacity that maybe – it is very much appreciated.
