Celebrating our Allied Health Professionals

Text that says "Allied Health Professional AHP Week 2023" The Torbay and South Devon NHS logo is in the top right.

Published: 9 October 2023

The sixth annual Allied Health Professionals (AHP) day takes place on Saturday 14 October and to mark this, we are taking part in a number of activities as part of the preceding week.

AHPs are the third-largest clinical workforce within health and care and are the unsung heroes of the NHS. There are 14 roles that make up AHPs:

  • Podiatrists
  • Dietitians
  • Occupational therapists
  • Operating department practitioners
  • Orthoptists
  • Osteopaths
  • Paramedics
  • Physiotherapists
  • Radiographers
  • Speech and language therapists
  • Art therapists
  • Drama therapists
  • Music therapists
  • Prosthetists and orthotists

Rhoda Allison, deputy chief allied health professional said: “AHPs are a diverse range of professions working across the whole health and care pathway, from urgent care and theatres, to rehabilitation, recovery and management of long-term conditions.”

“We have in the region of 650 AHPs within the trust, and their focus is on prevention and improvement of health and wellbeing to maximise the potential for individuals to live full and active lives within their family circles, social networks, education and training within the workplace.

“They are the unsung heroes of our workforce and I am very proud to be an AHP and to be supporting our AHPs as we head towards National AHP day on Saturday 14 October.”

AHP Awards

Rhoda said: “I am proud to announce that we are in the midst of creating an AHP Award for the Trust to help us celebrate all the hard work our AHPs and AHP support workers do. This award will allow colleagues, and members of the public so brilliantly supported by AHPs, to be able to nominate an AHP for an award.

“We are currently working through some of the details surrounding this process, and we will announce all the details shortly.”

AHP Week

We are undertaking a week of celebration to recognise AHPs and all the work they do.

From Sunday 08 October there will be profile videos of our AHPs who are sharing their story with us and these will be shared across our LinkedIn, Facebook and X (Formerly Twitter) social media platforms, so please keep an eye out for these and share them.

On Wednesday 11 October BBC Spotlight will be visiting Paignton Health and Wellbeing Centre to shadow podiatrists Ruth Gornall and Rob Fisher during one of their weekly surgeries to help show our public some of the work our AHPs undertake, and the positive effect they have on our community.

We have many opportunities within Torbay so if you would like to join the Allied Health Professional family, please visit the AHP Vacancies page.​​