Modernising allied health professions careers: Attacking the foundations of the professions?

Abstract

Recent UK Government reform of the National Health Service (NHS) has specifically targeted allied health professionals. As key members of the NHS work force, they have the capacity to modernize health service delivery. One way of enabling these professionals to fulfil the modernization agenda is through the development of their knowledge and skills. A recent document produced by the sector skills council for health care, “Skills for Health”, proposes a competency-based career framework for allied health professionals detailing the knowledge and skills they will need to develop for their future roles in the NHS. This paper briefly outlines the broader context in which professions in the UK have experienced the process of state-led reform over recent years. In particular, it identifies the motivation for the development of a skills-based workforce for the NHS and develops a critique of the economic and ideological rationales for the emergence of a competency-based career framework. Particular attention is paid to how such planned changes may affect professionalism and the professional roles for those working in the professions allied to medicine.

Keywords:

• Competency-based career framework
• allied health professionals
• professionalism
• professional roles

Acknowledgements

The author would like to thank Professor Gavin Poynter and Mrs Jacqueline Potter for their input in reviewing this paper. The author is also grateful to the anonymous reviews of an earlier version of this paper for their helpful suggestions.

Declaration of interest: The author is a senior lecturer at the University of East London teaching on undergraduate and postgraduate podiatry and physiotherapy programmes. The author reports no conflict of interest. The author alone is responsible for the content and writing of the paper.