Allied Health Professions National Delivery Plan 2012-2015 - Progress Report

Progress to date

The NDP reflects future Scottish demographics and has prompted AHP leaders to proactively review workforce solutions to assure the sustainability of future service delivery. This has included:

• The development of models of care which support the delivery of AHP Services across seven days and extended hours
• Within each profession: the development of roles across all levels of the career framework including the introduction of advanced level practitioners
• Across professional boundaries: by exploring shared skills and competencies, AHP s are contributing to more efficient and streamlined service delivery
• Development of third sector partnership supporting an asset-based approach

The implementation of the NDP is demonstrating significant impact across Scotland as AHPs contribute to the reduction of unnecessary admissions to hospital with a reduction in the length of stay for those who are acutely ill and for whom admission to hospital is the most appropriate option. Impact is also evident across a range of AHP services where the referral to treatment (RTT) waiting times are being reduced resulting in service users receiving more timely assessments and faster access to appropriate treatments and interventions.

Since the launch of the AHP NDP in June 2012, compelling progress has been made in realising the vision of the NDP resulting in a 52% national completion at the end of 2014.

Graph 1; overall national completion of NDP actions

The graph clearly illustrates actions which have been very successful and also those that have posed particular challenges. Further details of these achievements and challenges are detailed in the following tables.

Table 1: Building on NDP Achievements

Table 2: Addressing NDP Challenges

A number of the actions within the NDP have proved particularly challenging:

• only a few Boards have embedded the work of the NDP in their Local Development Plans and local performance management arrangements;
• there has been a lack of consistent e-health support across Scotland in recording and management of data to demonstrate impact, including waiting times information;
• in developing the matrix for measurement, the impact data for a number of deliverables was dependant on data from the social care sector which has proved challenging to source.