Chief Allied Health Professions Officer

Carolyn McDonald

Contact

Address

Chief Nursing Officer
The Scottish Government
St. Andrew's House
Regent Road
Edinburgh
EH1 3DG

0131 244 3329

Carolyn McDonald has been the Chief Allied Health Professions Officer since January 2020.

Responsibilities

The Chief Allied Health Professions Officer: 

  • leads on the Scottish Government Rehabilitation Framework for supporting people through recovery and rehabilitation during and after the COVID-19 Pandemic
  • chairs the Allied Health Professional Directors Scotland Group (ADSG) meetings which provides strategic leadership for the Allied Health Professions workforce
  • chairs AHP Network Collaborative meetings which includes representation from the ADSG, AHP Federation Scotland, AHP National Leads, Council of Deans and Higher Education Institutions
  • chairs meetings with the AHP National Leads
  • attends external meetings of AHP Federation Scotland, AHP Academic Heads, Council of Deans, Chief Health Professions Officers four home countries meetings, meetings with the Health and Care professions Council. Attends stakeholder meetings with the special boards, which include NES and HIS
  • is a member of the Scottish Radiology Transformation Programme and the Modern Outpatient Integrated Programme Board Meetings, Scottish Clinical Imaging Network and the National Elective Centre Programme

Biography

Carolyn McDonald has a professional leadership and policy lead role for the 14 Allied Health Profession (AHP) Groups. She provides advice to ministers and the Government on professional matters including education, training, workforce, regulation and role/service development as well as leading on policy for adult rehabilitation and falls prevention.

Carolyn trained as an occupational therapist in Dublin, graduating in 1985, and has worked all of her professional life in Scotland. She has held various clinical roles across her occupational therapy career predominantly in community child health where she set up and expanded this service in Fife. 

Before taking up post as Chief Allied Health Professions Officer for the Scottish Government on 6 January 2020, Carolyn was the Associate Director for the Allied Health Professions for the last ten years in NHS Fife where she held a strategic leadership role for all of the allied health professions where she lead on their contribution to the delivering on national and local policy including the legislation on the integration of health and social care.

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