Message from Prof. Brendan Cooper, President, AHCS To UK Healthcare Scientists
As President of the Academy for Healthcare Science I would welcome working in partnership with you and your professional organisation to ensure that we can together share information or offer mutual support, for appropriate campaigns, relevant issues as well as responses you might have from your specific area of Healthcare Science. I believe we share much in common, for example – workforce, training standards, quality of services, scientific knowledge and practise as well as concerns over regulation and a mutual concern of the future of the NHS and UK healthcare. Despite apparently coming from diverse scientific and professional backgrounds we actually share so many values and beliefs in science and healthcare. The one unifying force that we all defend to the hilt is the safety and care of patients, but our particular concern is for those who use science on the clinical pathway.
I am very aware of the importance of connecting with professional colleagues in other disciplines and related workstreams – from the clinic level to dealing with government. There are issues where our voice can actually add harmony to other professional organisations such as your own and influence change.
It is a new and exciting era in the evolution of AHCS as the over-arching professional body for Healthcare Science, representing the voice of the majority of over 65,000 people working in the profession across the UK. In my term as President, I want to amplify the messages of our constituent professional bodies, not just in England, but in Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland – to form truly a UK wide voice. As AHCS President, I want to provide the clear “One Voice” that will make the Academy the principal organisation that external organisations come to, to hear the collective voice of Healthcare Science. However, to speak on your behalf I need to understand what messages are important for you; also, I want you to understand that the Academy One Voice is not a threat but an enormous opportunity not only to speak with One Voice – but to be listened to as well.
We are again facing another phase of great change and relentless pressure on UK health services. My hope is that we can apply our measured scientific approaches so that as we all work together, both in our professional bodies and in the Academy, we use strong arguments to influence proposed reforms so that effective care, based on good evidence is implemented widely. Our health service is crying out for great ideas, delivered by responsible leaders from professionals who have a long record of quality healthcare delivery – you and your teams!
Throughout my presidency we have been able to respond to a number of important calls for change (prescribing scoping project, government consultation on life sciences, 7-Day working, etc.) but more importantly we have been taking our messages to key influencers in all four nations (meeting with Royal Medical College Presidents, Chief Medical and Scientific Officers, holding our Congress in Edinburgh, etc.). So we know that by joining together on important issues we can have influence others and start to raise our profile.
Please feel free to contact me on kirsty.clark@ahcs.ac.uk if you require a One Voice opinion, or want support or engagement from the Academy, or if you wish to share your thoughts, concerns or issues. You can also leave your details to be in included in our networks and circulation list.