We hope that you have all had a lovely summer and usually August is the time things quieten down a little for BIOS but this year seems to have been super busy and September even more so.
It was with great sadness that we heard of the death of Her Majesty Queen Elizabeth II on the 8th September. Our thoughts are with the Royal Family at this time and as a mark of respect we suspended our planned communications on social media.
BIOS News
We are delighted to inform you that Claire McEntee has been appointed as the Trustee for the Republic of Ireland. We will ask Claire to introduce herself to you all over the next few weeks.
Craig also received some brilliant news that the Clinical Placement Expansion Project using the HoloLens technology and the implementation of the PERL has been shortlisted for a CAHPO award on the 13th October – the day before we celebrate AHPs day.
Workforce
Our work force reform projects are moving at pace and the first expert reference group for the support workforce project was held on Wednesday 31st August and it was great to see so many orthoptists and assistants on the call. We are starting to develop website pages dedicated to developing our support workforce and will add content and resources over the next few weeks. The ACP project is recruiting for our expert panel, we have a new member forum and pages on the website dedicated to advanced practice. Apprenticeships is another area of focus for BIOS and we are currently scoping out the agenda for an online event looking at routes to funding for Advanced Practice across the UK and hearing from our trainees and qualified ACPS – please look out for a save the date coming soon.
The workforce survey is almost ready to send out to heads and leads of services and is at the final ratification stages with the LOOP steering committee – it is crucial for future workforce planning across the UK and Ireland that we gather the most accurate data about our registered and non-registered workforce.
We welcome all new orthoptic students to their respective courses and placements will be in full swing soon – I have been delighted to be invited to the PEEP (Peer Enhanced E Placements) clinical placement work that has been piloted in Scotland over the summer with a roll out plan for the coming year.
Trustees
The Board of Trustees are meeting in early October and will undertake their annual governance training. The autumn meeting is focussed on the financial aspects of BIOS and will look to set the membership fees for 2023. If you have any items that you wish to raise at the meeting, please contact your regional or country Trustee:
Scotland: scotlandtrustee@orthoptics.org.uk – Angela Carlin
Northern Ireland: NItrustee@orthoptics.org.uk – Declan McClements
Wales: walestrustee@orthoptics.org.uk – Patrick Reedy
Republic of Ireland: roitrustee@orthoptics.org.uk – Claire McEntee
England North: northtrustee@orthoptics.org.uk – Deborah Podmore
England South: Southtrustee@orthoptics.org.uk – Kelly Mackenzie
England Midlands and east: midsandeasttrustee@orthoptics.org.uk – Rebecca Pinches
Heads and Leads: loopchair@orthoptics.org.uk – Krishan Parmar
Chair Designate: chairdesignate@orthoptics.org.uk – Craig Murray
Vice Chair: vicechair@orthoptics.org.uk – Julie Dowdney
Chair: chair@orthoptics.org.uk – Veronica Greenwood
BIOS Conference
The BIOS conference and AGM for 2023 will take place on the 22nd and 23rd June in Belfast and the event has now gone live with early bird booking rates and group booking discounts. The provisional programme and call for papers will be available shortly.
Please remember to look at the events page for all upcoming events to secure your place on the new graduate CPD event, the Professionalism workshops, the Scottish Clinical meeting and the clinical tutor’s course and forum.
Updates from recent stakeholder meetings
Julie, Craig and I met with our HCPC relationship manager last week and this gave us the opportunity to raise concerns or ask for information directly. You will have seen the recent communications regarding the new Standards of Proficiency coming into effect from September 2023 and a consultation is due to be released in the Autumn regarding the Standards of Conduct and Ethics. I also attended a professional body briefing and then a joint HCPC / HEE stakeholder group to discuss the draft preceptorship principles as the HCPC regard this of an area to support graduates, early carer registrants along with those new to role or returning to practice. Whilst this is a joint piece of work with HEE the remit is UK wide and the HCPC will be consulting on the principles later in the year. You can find more information here.
Julie attended the National Uniform Meeting led by NHSe (England only) where there were extensive discussions. A provisional agreement from the project team is that we will be able to have a single AHP white smart scrub style top / dress with each AHP organisation having different colour collars and edging. Individual colours are up for negotiation; however, it was agreed that those AHPs with an already obvious colourway will continue e.g., Physiotherapy in blue, Occupational Therapy in green etc. This is rather than the proposal for all AHPs to be in one colour with embroidery for each profession. For Orthoptists this is not a million miles away from the uniform they may already wear but a smart scrub style instead of tunic. Uniforms will not be mandatory, but Trusts will be encouraged to use guidance on colours for all staff groups, enabling staff to “take their uniform with them” if they move Trusts, and allow patients to recognise staff group by their uniforms. As more information is released, we will share it with you.
Craig and I attended 2 meetings this week where Craig had the opportunity to shadow me. The AHPF Board meeting focussed on a meeting with the HCPC CEO where the professional bodies had a number of issues to raise. There is shortly to be a fee consultation and I have now arranged for BIOS to meet the CEO and Chair to receive more information. We also raised the issue of annotations not being consistently applied to Orthoptists having passed the exemptions courses or graduating. There was a lengthy discussion about the time taken for some FTP cases to reach a conclusion.
The board are considering funding further places on the Future Leaders Programme for BAME colleagues to ensure the diversity of our future associations. There is also a call from the AHPF for more Greener AHP case studies and Fiona Bush, BIOS Public Health Lead has been collating these from orthoptists – please remember to send her your case studies. There is also a discussion for England about the AHP strategy and its implementation linked to ICS developments as AHPs struggle to be included on some ICS’s.
The College of Optometry Workforce data modelling meeting brought key stakeholders together to discuss a proposal looking at modelling the UK eye health workforce, disease prevalence and an interactive dashboard. The Trustees were unanimous in agreeing that BIOS should be a key stakeholder in this work to ensure Orthoptists are included. We have committed a small amount of funding and some data sharing but this is not yet confirmed as the project and proposal are still not finalised. We will continue to update you as we know more about this work. Other stakeholders include the RCOphth, ABDO, FODO and the College of Optometry and the group included representatives from all UK countries.
We are all meeting with Venus Madden, Fellow to the CAHPO, to discuss the implementation of the new AHPs strategy and then we will also attend the AHP workforce and education oversight committee meeting in mid-September and the HCPC quarterly professional bodies update. I am also looking forward to joining Welsh members at their forthcoming clinical meeting in Abergavenny on the 23rd September.
As always, we welcome your views and feedback so, please do not hesitate to contact us.
Veronica Greenwood – Chair – chair@orthoptics.org.uk
Julie Dowdney – Vice Chair – vicechair@orthoptics.org.uk
Craig Murray- Chair Designate – chairdesignate@orthoptic.org.uk
