Occupational Therapy News OTNews March 2020 | Página 13

FEATURE NEWS
Building
the best
rehabilitation
services in the
world
Ruth Crowder, the chief allied health
professions officer in Wales, tells
Andrew Mickel why she wants the
new AHP framework put into action as
soon as possible
I
t’s not often that authors hope that their work will have a short
expiry date, but that is absolutely the case with the new AHP
framework for Wales.
‘In nine years I want people to be rarely picking this up, and
if they do to think, “this is a bit old hat”,’ says Ruth Crowder, the
government’s chief allied health professions officer and the driving
force behind the new strategy.
‘I want a sense of urgency and to see some rapid
transformation,’ she says. ‘Transformation that is robust, secure
and evidence based; but rapid, so we are really making sure we
can help people to live as well and as independently as possible.’
Looking forward together is primarily designed as an AHP
response to A healthier Wales, the government’s vision for
health and social care in the next 10 years that plans a shift from
hospitals out to the community.
The new framework is based on extensive engagement with
the 13 allied health professions to plan how Wales can – in the
words of Minister for Health and Social Services Vaughan Gething
– develop the best rehabilitation services in the world.
Says Ruth: ‘The vision in A healthier Wales really sings to allied
health professions: that everyone should have longer, happier,
healthier lives. There is a sentence that says that people should be
‘able to remain active and independent in their own home as long
as possible’, and that’s in absolute alignment with AHP philosophy
and practice, and specifically with occupational therapy.
‘A healthier Wales is also very clear that we need to rebalance
the health and care system to focus on health and wellbeing and
prevention, primary care and population health, and again this is
really well aligned with what AHPs are looking to achieve.’
The new framework brings together six core principles for how
AHPs can transform services, and this is why Ruth sees each of
them as integral to delivering their vision.
Inspiring and enabling people to live healthier lives
Ruth sees the first three principles as being about how people
will get to achieve the outcomes that matter to them, while
experiencing the highest quality of care and treatment.
And Ruth says this first principle will be driven by helping the
AHP workforce find what drew them into the profession. ‘This
is about inspiring people to live healthier lives – you can’t inspire
people if you aren’t inspired yourself,’ she says. ‘So we really
want people to recapture that excitement for what’s possible, and
understand how important the skills that they have are, and use
them in the right way.’
But this first principle is also about making sure that ‘people
feel empowered and skilled to make their own choices and be in
control of their own health and wellbeing’, says Ruth.
OTnews March 2020 13