Publish date: 12 November 2021
West London NHS Trust is proud to congratulate Allied Health Professions Education Leads Claire McDonald and Louisa Ellis for winning awards at the Health Education England Practice Learning Symposium.
Claire won in the 'Placement Allocation and Capacity' category whilst Louisa won in the 'Practice Learning Innovation' category.
The virtual event run by Health Education England (HEE), celebrated the work taking place across London over the past 12 months to increase clinical placement capacity for AHP and nursing students.
As the Trust's two Allied Health Professional (AHP) leads, Claire and Louisa led the development of AHP clinical placements for West London NHS Trust. The competition was extremely fierce as they faced off against all other NHS Trusts in London.
Claire worked closely with all the AHP teams across the Trust, supporting them with taking more AHP students on placement. She has established a robust method of capturing our placement data to ensure that we utilise our placement capacity effectively and keep track on areas where it is not being fully utilised.
Louisa has worked tirelessly to create different ways for teams to support AHP students through their clinical placements during Covid-19. This includes the introduction of virtual placements and opening up a range of new possibilities such as having physiotherapy students in the Trust's Crisis Assessment and Treatments (CATT) teams.
The winners were decided by Laura Leadsford (Regional AHP Lead for HEE, London region), Nichole McIntosh (Chief Nurse, HEE London region) and Chloe Keith-Jopp (Clinical Fellow, HEE London region).
Congratulations to both for their incredible achievements.