Cheshire and Merseyside Allied Health Professional (AHP) Faculty
About the service
The Cheshire and Merseyside Allied Health Professional Faculty is the ‘engine room’ of the Cheshire and Merseyside AHP Council, part of the Cheshire and Merseyside Health and Care Partnership.
The Council is made up of the Allied Health Professional (AHP) leads who identify priorities for AHPs working in Cheshire and Merseyside.
The Faculty is made up of AHPs from different organisations and professions who lead on projects designed to address these priorities. Organisations include:
- National Health Service (NHS) and other health care organisations
- Local Authorities and other social care organisations
- Higher Education Institutes (Universities)
- Primary care
- Voluntary sector
- Private organisations
Instead of everyone working separately, the Faculty brings everyone together under one umbrella.
The Faculty can provide advice to those working on individual projects within organisations, however, its primary focus is to co-create and manage projects working across multiple organisations.
There are now 25 Faculties all over England. The remaining 17 Integrated Care Systems (ICS) and Sustainability and Transformation Partnerships (STP) in the UK are in the process of forming their faculties (as of March 2022).
Watch here to find out more about the role of AHP Faculties
AHP Faculty Information
- C&M AHP Faculty Events
Latest events
Council for Allied Health Professionals Research | Tuesday 20th September 2022 | 9:00-10:30
CHAMPS Public Health Collaborative | All Together Active: Launching Cheshire and Merseyside's Physical Activity Strategy | Wednesday 12th October 2022 | 10-11:30am
Previous events
Clinical Placement Expansion Programme 21/22 Celebration Event | Wednesday 15th June | 14:00 - 15:30 | FREE online event via Microsoft Teams
Alternative AHP Placements | Wednesday 13th April | 13:00 - 14:30 | FREE online event
AHP Return to Practice Event | Wednesday 30th March
- Latest News
- CPD Opportunities
Population Health Workforce Development Programme opportunities
Public Health England | Population Wellbeing Portal
Champs Public Health Collaborative | Training & Events
Champs Public Health Collaborative | Training opportunities to reduce harm from alcohol
Champs Public Health Collaborative | Leading Prevention in Clinical Services Toolkit
Cancer in the Community
NHS Health Education England | Cancer in the Community
Quality Improvement
NHS England | Drive your services forward with Improvement Fundamentals
Post graduate Certificates
Liverpool University | Critical Care
Liverpool University | Introductory Course for Practice Placement Educators - Please email Natalie.murray@liverpool.ac.uk
- Contact
If further information is needed, please contact:
- Cheshire and Merseyside AHP Faculty Chair | Viki Hunt
- Cheshire & Merseyside AHP Workforce Lead | Jennie Money
- Cheshire and Merseyside AHP Faculty Lead | Charlotte Golson
- Cheshire and Merseyside AHP Faculty Project Support Coordinator | Graeme Brannan
For all enquiries, please email CMAHPFaculty@sthk.nhs.uk
- Our Twitter Feed
- Our YouTube Channel
Please visit our YouTube channel for the latest news and information from our team.
- Governance
The AHP Faculty is funded by Health Education England (HEE) and hosted by St Helens and Knowsley Teaching Hospitals NHS Trust.
Regular update reports are provided to the North West AHP Supply and Transformation Board (HEE).
The AHP Faculty is also aligned with the Cheshire and Merseyside AHP Council (made up of all Chief and Lead AHPs) who provide the direction for the key priorities.
- Faculty Resources
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Physiotherapy Apprenticeship Implementation Group
Next Meeting: September 7th 2022 10am-11am
Group Priorities: This group will be working on tasks such as: developing business cases, creating shared job descriptions, ironing out issues about qualifications required and agreeing a standardised profession-specific uniform for apprentices. This is to ensure that organisations are ready to host prospective apprentices.
Audience: professional leads, education leads, PEFs, Operational managers, Therapy leads
Click here to be added to the mailing list for this group
AHP Support Worker Development Group
Next Meeting: 5th September 2021 1pm-2pm
Group Priorities: create a community if practice for AHP support workforce and list the priority workforce issues within C&M. This group will collaborate and share learning across Cheshire & Merseyside using the readiness toolkit.
Audience: professional leads, education leads, PEFs, Operational managers, Therapy leads
Click here to be added to the C&M AHP Support Worker
AHP Equality, Diversity, Inclusion and Belonging Group
Next Meeting: 6th September 2022 1pm-2pm
Group Priorities: Initial actions will revolve around scoping current EDI networks/activities and AHP involvement within these in individual organisations with the aim of increasing diversity and inclusion in the AHP workforce.
Audience: AHP Leads, Professional leads, EDI leads, AHP’s with a passion for EDI
Click here to be added to the C&M AHP EDI group
AHP Return to Practice Working Group
Next meeting: 13th September 2022 11am-12pm
Group Priorities: Supporting organisations to enhance how we can increase the number of returnees to the HCPC register across C&M and share best practice on how to support them with this journey.
Audience: professional leads, education leads, PEFs, Operational managers, Therapy leads
Click here to be added to the C&M AHP RtP group
C&M AHP Early Careers and Preceptorship Work group
Next meeting: 8th September 2022 11am-12pm
Group Priorities: Establish % of trusts who now have a standardised preceptorship offer in place for NQ AHPs, % who are using NW multi-professional preceptorship framework & % who have evaluated their preceptorship programme post trust workforce projects
Audience: AHP Preceptors, Professional Leads, Education Leads, PEFs, L&D managers
Click here to be added to the C&M AHP Early Careers Group
C&M AHP Workforce Leads Group
Next meeting: 5th September 2022 3pm-4pm
Group priorities: Supporting the AHP workforce at trust level to individually achieve the above priorities
AHP Faculty FAQs
- Why is it called the Faculty?
The word 'faculty' traditionally refers to the staff members within an academic institution, but in this context, it refers to the collaboration between different organisations within Sustainability and Transformation Partnerships (STP) and Integrated Care Systems (ICS).
The idea of establishing Faculties originated with Health Education England (HEE).
- What are the issues facing our AHPs?
The NHS Long Term Plan outlines multiple goals for clinical and AHP services.
To achieve these goals, we need to increase the number,and support the retention, of AHPs to meet the demand in the next 10 years.
We do this by putting plans in place for the following priorities:
- Improving career promotion and increasing work experience for those considering career options to attract more people to consider AHP as a viable career option
- Promoting an increasingly diverse and inclusive workforce
- Expanding clinical placements – As universities are offering more places to students, there is increased demand for clinical placements. Support and assistance to achieve this is required.
- Increasing apprenticeship routes into AHP registration through promoting these routes and supporting the AHP support workforce to access these opportunities
- Understanding the reasons students leave their training courses early and working on solutions to assist
- Developing existing registered and support staff to encourage retention and to assist people to feel valued and satisfied with career growth options
- Promoting Advance Practice roles for AHPs – diversifying the AHP role into the Advanced Practitioner realm
- Supporting those who are returning to practice by promoting a smooth journey for those wanting to return after a break in their career
In conjunction with AHPs across Cheshire and Merseyside, the Faculty will design, promote and run projects to address these issues.
- Who are the faculty members of the Cheshire and Merseyside AHP Faculty?
The Cheshire and Merseyside AHP Faculty is made up of:
17 NHS organisations
- Alder Hey Children’s NHS Foundation Trust
- Bridgewater Community Healthcare NHS Foundation Trust
- Cheshire and Wirral Partnership NHS Foundation Trust
- The Clatterbridge Cancer Centre NHS Foundation Trust
- Countess of Chester Hospital NHS Foundation Trust
- East Cheshire NHS Trust
- Liverpool Heart and Chest NHS Foundation Trust
- Liverpool Women's NHS Foundation Trust
- Liverpool University Hospitals NHS Trust
- Mersey Care NHS Foundation Trust
- Mid Cheshire Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust
- St Helens and Knowsley Teaching Hospitals NHS Trust
- Southport and Ormskirk Hospital NHS Trust
- The Walton Centre NHS Foundation Trust
- Warrington and Halton Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust
- Wirral Community NHS Foundation Trust
- Wirral University Teaching Hospital NHS Foundation Trust
9 Social care organisations
- Cheshire East Council
- Cheshire West and Chester Council
- Halton Borough Council
- Knowsley Borough Council
- Liverpool City Council
- Sefton Council
- St Helens Council
- Warrington Borough Council
- Wirral Council
6 Higher Education Institutes
- University of Liverpool
- University of Salford
- University of Chester
- Edge Hill University
- Manchester Metropolitan University
- Liverpool John Moores University
Private, independent and voluntary parties that support AHPs in the C&M area Primary Care Networks
- What is the structure of the Faculty?
The Faculty will carry out its operations via the Faculty Steering group, which consists of:
- a Chair
- an AHP Workforce Lead
- a Faculty Lead
- Project Leads
- representatives from the organisations in the Faculty
There is also admin support.
- Do the Faculty members need to have certain qualifications?
No. The Faculty is made up of members from the existing workforce from these different organisations.
To become a member, you need to be:
- an Allied Health Professional
- passionate about AHP development
- interested in collaboration and will believe that together we can resolve issues
- self motivated
- willing to think ‘outside the box’
Staff from all levels/grades are encouraged to join, especially those interested in developing their:
- Leadership skills
- Project management skills
- Quality improvement methodology skills
The work of the Faculty is carried out using a quality improvement and project management approach.
