21st century attitudes to working in healthcare

People working in the health care professions work with some of the most vulnerable people in society. The range of careers on offer is mind boggling but the kind of person that will excel, needs to be caring, compassionate, a team player and able to cope with responsibility. Fiona Ottewell, head of physiotherapy at Gateshead NHS Foundation Trust explains:

As a good healthcare professional you will need...

• Interpersonal skills so that you can really engage with your patients and offer value in all of your dealings with them.
• To education patients. It isn’t enough to fix the immediate problem but not teach the patient how they can help themselves in the future or how to manage a long-term condition.
• Communication skills. Not only do we need to communicate well with patients and with other members of the team, we also need to raise the profile of our profession so that those who commission our services are aware of what we can offer. This will become increasingly important as your career progresses and you take on managerial responsibilities.
• To be creative.
• Caring and compassionate. Anything you can do to add value to a patient’s experience is worth the effort so you shouldn’t be blinkered in your dealings with patients and ignore other problems. It’s important to be holistic in your approach. Healthcare professionals are often central in signposting patients to other services. For example, if in your dealings with a patient you find out that they are experiencing housing problems and you know where to direct them to get help, pass the information on.

Leadership skills required for working in healthcare

• Problem solving. The best solutions are often the ones that come from staff working on the front line who have a real understanding of all the issues.
• Dealing with the fast pace of change and be able to respond positively to these changes. For example, changes to the wider NHS have led to a blurring of the boundaries between different professions so it’s important that those entering healthcare professions are open to sharing their skills with others as well as learning new ones.
• Being a flexible self-learner. Being able to reflect on and learn from incidents in the workplace is really important.

In the future many healthcare professionals working in the community won’t necessarily be supervised all the time by a member of the same profession. This shouldn’t be an issue so long as you have access to someone senior from your own profession for professional issues. Once you are a qualified healthcare professional you should be independent enough to hold your own and should be confident that you will be well supported by your team.

Fiona Ottewell has been a physiotherapist since 1985 and has been head of physiotherapy at Gateshead NHS Foundation Trust since 2003.

Allied health in brief

• Allied health professionals (AHPs) are a key member of today’s healthcare team, providing treatment that can transform people’s lives.
• Whether you are interested in science or the arts, sport or psychology, there will be an allied health profession to suit your interests.
• AHPs need to study at degree or diploma level to become fully trained.
• AHPs have their own caseloads and work as autonomous professionals within multidisciplinary teams.
• AHPs use their understanding of the physical, mental and social needs of people to help patients with difficulties bring about a change for the better in their lives.