BAPO is currently working on a large programme of work across the spectrum of prosthetics and orthotics. All updates on the work will be added to this page throughout the next 12 months. BAPO will be working alongside the Creative Health Alliance.
The Creative Health Alliance are working on the following projects with BAPO:
Please click on the lines below to view the information related to the projects titled.
There are three inter-related strands to the work to promote careers in P&O:
- Revise the BAPO P&O Careers handbook to produce a contemporary and accessible resource.
- Produce and pilot career promotion content aimed at school leavers (when selecting GCSEs / A levels / Scottish Nationals and equivalent) and undergraduate learners (for the pre-reg masters). Make final content available for future use by BAPO members to promote P+O careers at a local and regional level.
- Engage in career promotion activities to two specific career changer groups (people leaving the Armed Forces and Professional Sport).
Each strand will involve working together to co-create the resources from within the profession. Please look out for opportunities to engage with this work e.g., contribute a story, help devise an activity to engage school leavers or review draft work of the handbook.
Are you a prosthetist, orthotist, P&O student or apprentice, P&O technician, or support worker with a background in professional sports?
Are you a prosthetist, orthotist, P&O student or apprentice, P&O technician, or support worker with a background in professional sports?
Are you a prosthetist or orthotist who has previously worked in the Armed Forces?
Dr Stephanie Tempest presented at the BAPO Regional Conference – West Midlands on 06/09/2024
Growing the P&O workforce towards a sustainable future. You can view this presentation below.
This workstream focusses on expanding and developing the pre-registration learner support mechanisms and resources offered by BAPO. One aspect of the work is to strengthen the learner voice by developing a BAPO pre-registration learner ‘community of practice’, ‘network’ or ‘forum’. There’s work to be done to explore and agree the nature of such a group, how it will inform BAPO’s work, what it might look like in practice, before setting it up and piloting it. The other key area of work is to develop a BAPO website page dedicated to pre-registration learners. It will become a central location for accessing the information, materials and resources that it would be most valuable for the professional body to make available to them during their pre-registration journeys. We hope that the new Learner ‘forum’ will be able to help us determine the format and content of the new Learner Hub webpage.
Help us plan the new BAPO learner webpage
🤔 Are you on a learning pathway to become a prosthetist orthotist?
🤔 Do you support those learners as an educator or employer (of apprentices)?
As part of the NHSE programme of work, we’d love your thoughts about how to shape a new learner-focused page on BAPO’s website as.
The plan is that it will be a ‘go to’ page to help pre-registration learners easily access BAPO resources of particular relevance to them. It will be open access for everyone, not just BAPO student members.
💡 The focus will be on providing access to BAPO information and resources that add value to, rather than replicate, resources learners already access from their education provider, employer, or practice-based learning environments. Things that it’s appropriate for the professional body to provide to support their journey to joining the professional workforce.
🌟 The important question is what would you like to see included on the page? 🌟
Initial suggestions include providing easy access to:
- ‘A day in the life of …’ blog posts from colleagues within the profession to offer inspiration
- BAPO short courses, webinars, Teatime Talks & other virtual events
- The BAPO YouTube channel
- Other BAPO professional affairs and practice resources
- The BAPO Mentoring Programme
- The BAPO (2024) Career Development Framework
- The BAPO (2024) Practice-based Learning Framework for Pre-registration Learners
- The BAPO (2024) Early Career Guidance Framework
- Resources to support your preceptorship journey as you transition from learner to new HCPC registrant
🤔 What else would you suggest we include?
🤔 How can we make this new webpage as useful to pre-registration learners as possible?
Please let us know what you think! 🙏
Email your suggestions to Jo Watson (jo@drjowatsonconsulting.com), who is leading the work to develop the new webpage on behalf of The Creative Health Alliance.
The aim of this workstream is to work towards embedding effective preceptorship as usual practice within the P&O profession, regardless of the employing organisation. Preceptorship is a period of structured and individualised support that can make a significant difference to new graduates navigating the transition from pre-registration learner to confident registered professional. It can:
- support recruitment to individual organisations;
- build graduates’ confidence enabling them to apply their knowledge and skills to greatest effect and fulfil their potential;
- contribute to high quality care and service delivery, and
- ease the stark early attrition figures noted in the profession (12.5% within the first four years of registration (HCPC, 2023))
That makes it a worthy investment of time and effort. As part of this work, we will be exploring what guidance, tools and resources BAPO could develop to support employers, their staff and new graduates to engage actively with preceptorship.
Check out the related BAPO (2024) Early Career Guidance Framework.
BAPO is pleased to launch the Graduate Welcome Pack.
This document has been reviewed by BAPO’s Professional Affairs Committee, the National Orthotics Managers’ Association Group, the Prosthetic Managers Group, the Scottish Orthotic Clinical Leads Group, The Creative Health Alliance, prosthetic and orthotic students, and Prosthetists/Orthotists from all four UK nations.
This welcome pack has been designed to provide graduates with all the information they might need as they take their first steps into their new career.
You can also watch the webinar – The value of embedding preceptorship for new P&O graduates here
Developing the support worker role (as a distinct patient facing role to the established technician role) is an area of potential growth to maximise efficiency within the workforce. This workstream involves forming a Task and Finish Group with some of the existing P+O Support Workers to:
- Understand from Support Workers the opportunities and barriers for role development
- Develop additional multimedia resources to promote the role
- Design an open-access BAPO Support Worker webpage
Please look out for ways to support this workstream including providing time for Support Workers to engage with it.
This workstream involves collaborating with P&O stakeholders to instil a sense of accountability regarding the recruitment and retention of the workforce. The strategic emphasis will be on leveraging key development opportunities, building upon the foundation laid by the recently released BAPO resources and assets. This includes the integration of the BAPO curriculum guidance document, which will be updated to ensure it reflects the outputs of this workstream. Including but limited to
- Developing top-tier quality learning environments.
- Innovating in PBL delivery, designing a PBL delivery model that offers growth potential,
- Providing diverse learning experiences that encompass the four pillars of professional practice
This workstream is about focussing on the pillar of education to build capability to support increased numbers of P&O learners, maximising opportunities for growth utilising available capacity. This will be achieved by embedding best practice guidance alongside proposing an allocation tool that will ensure capacity to support increased numbers of learners.
There will be online events to discuss key best practice guidance, for example we have a webinar in July, discussing and debating the recently published Educator Career Framework.
This workstream seeks to address capacity and capability concerns for P&O by offering an alternative approach to increasing both PBL capacity and educator capability. This work will be completed in tandem with key BAPO stakeholders such as the Training and Education Network (TEN).
We also want to create an Educator Network, and so if you are a Clinical Educator interested in this work, please do contact us – we would love to have you on our team.
AHP Educator Career Framework Webinar Recording Available Now
If you missed the AHP Educator Career Framework Webinar on the 10th July 2024 – you can watch now on the BAPO YouTube channel.
There are opportunities for prosthetists and orthotists to get directly involved in the next stages of the AHP Educator Career Development Framework and to join the BAPO educator network
Twitter: @beverleydurrant
Educator Network call out – video message from Dr Beverley Durrant
The Educator Workforce
building and effectively using capacity to support practice-based learning
Ensuring a comprehensive understanding of the P&O PBL capacity is at the heart of this workstream. Assessing capacity will allow foundations to be built on a robust understanding of PBL capacity across the UK for both prosthetics and orthotics.
A feasibility assessment will gather information to include, examining best practice guidance, exemplars of good practice, and success stories from other PBs, including work completed on AHP clinical hours assessment, and exemplar practice in SIM environments. Additionally, the views and opinions of the P&O workforce, education providers and, wider communities, including learners will be sought. This will be achieved, for example, by engagement with the training and education network, case studies collated from learners’ experiences from pre-registration P&O programmes.
Look out for ways to get involved.
BAPO is currently working on a large programme of work across the spectrum of prosthetics and orthotics. All updates on the work will be added to this page throughout the next 12 months
