This month is Skin Cancer Awareness month and we are delighted to announce our new partnership with Melanoma UK. The intention of this partnership is to raise awareness of melanoma, not only this May but throughout the course of the year and your careers, for podiatrists and foot health practitioners to identify lesions of concern, and to give guidance through information and services available to both healthcare professionals and their patients.
Melanoma UK is the leading melanoma patient support organisation in the UK who are active in their participation in health technology appraisal meetings (NICE and SMC), presenting clinically validated information on their website, authoring publications from their Melanoma UK digital registry and who have developed and regularly engage with their very own panel of medical experts.
Melanoma is the deadliest form of skin cancer and is the 5th most common cancer in the UK. By 2025 it is projected that 19,513 people in the UK are expected to be diagnosed with melanoma and according to the World Health Organisation approximately 3,119 of these people are expected to die from melanoma that year.
As podiatrists and foot health professionals we see a 3rd of a person’s body each and every working day. It is important that we have an understanding of troublesome lesions and that we can identify those which could prove lethal to our patients. This partnership is the beginning of a journey to educate our profession, offer greater care to our patients, and an opportunity to work together to help reduce these daunting figures.
What better way to introduce you to melanoma than this highly-informative webinar on acral and subungual melanoma with Professor Christian Aldridge (Melanoma UK Medical Advisor) and Ms Kei Hutchinson (Associate lecturer In podiatry at Cardiff Uni) on Acral and Subungual Melanoma. https://www.melanomauk.org.uk/acral-and-subungual-melanoma
Together with Melanoma UK we aim to bring you further information, news and education around skin cancers and melanoma throughout the course of the year.
For more information on melanoma and the great work and resources available from Melanoma UK visit Melanoma UK
The last remaining COVID restrictions in England have ended (24th Feb), in the Republic of Ireland the mandatory requirement to wear a mask was removed (28th Feb) and Scotland’s restrictions are due to end on 21st March.
The guidance from NHS England, the UK Health Security Agency, the Northern Ireland Public Health Agency, and Public Health Wales continues to recommend Type II or Type IIR face coverings in healthcare settings.
The advice also recommends that: “physical distancing of one metre should still remain, increasing whenever feasible to two metres, across all health and care settings”. The guidance continues to recommend that staff and organisations continue to undertake risk assessments using ‘hierarchy of controls’ measures. This should include an evaluation of the ventilation in the area, operational capacity, physical distancing and prevalence of Covid-19.
The guidance has also made a range of recommendations for occupational health practitioners working within the NHS, health or care settings. This has included re-emphasising that “prompt recognition” of cases of respiratory infection among health and care staff remains essential to limiting transmission. “All staff should be vigilant for any signs of respiratory infection and should not come to work if they have respiratory symptoms.
In the Republic of Ireland with effect from 28th February, the mandatory requirement to wear masks was removed, whilst public health advice that masks should continue to be worn on public transport and in healthcare settings remains. Please see https://www.gov.ie/en/publication/aac74c-guidance-on-safe-use-of-face-coverings/
“I am delighted to welcome Anthony Hubbard to the Institute’s Senior Management Team from 1st January 2022 in a brand new and most exciting role for the Institute as Chief Executive Officer. His simple remit is to continue to drive forward our ongoing development and long-term growth as the fully democratic UK professional podiatry and foot health body that is run by members for members. You will probably already know Anthony as a co-opted external expert to the Institute’s Board of Directors, and over the last months he has brought to our deliberations a welcome fund of knowledge and widespread experience in the healthcare world. His past senior roles include Managing Director of the nationally known medical and scientific supplies company Schuco International, and his present role is as a Senior Technical Executive in Croda Pharmaceuticals (a UK chemicals/pharmaceutical company with a current revenue of £1.39 Billion) from which he moves on to take over his new role with IOCP. As well as being a strong business professional he is a Scientist with a BSc (Hons) in Applied Chemistry from Trent Polytechnic, a Chartered Scientist and a Fellow of the Royal Society of Chemistry. Anthony will be reporting to the Board via myself and working with Jill as Company Secretary and her admin team of Julie, our Membership Officer, Sam, our Education Officer and Kirsty, our Marketing Specialist, with all of whom he has already established an excellent professional relationship during his time as a Board Advisor. I know that I speak for the Board in that they, and myself, are looking forward immensely to working with Anthony, and our already established team members, in this exciting new development stage of our more than 70 years of service to the feet of the nation and the dedicated professionals; you, our members, who work so hard to maintain and improve it.” – Martin Harvey FPodM IP PGC BSc, Chair Board of Directors IOCP
Anthony Hubbard CSci CChem FRSC: “At a time when NHS services are becoming increasingly more difficult to access, certainly in a timely manner, we have a great opportunity in front of us to promote our services directly to the general public and also to work to train and develop people involved in all levels of foot and lower limb health, from entry level foot health practitioners all the way through to supporting podiatric surgeons in their ongoing continual professional development in delivering their services and supporting them in their own business growth. To do this, we need to review our ways of working, create a strategy for growth, develop our supporting services and focus on delivery in all that we do.
What experience do I have in creating such a pathway and ensuring that we deliver? For the past 6 years I have been leading a health care applications laboratory for the largest chemical company in the UK, a company called Croda, with their HQ in Yorkshire; you probably haven’t heard of them by name, but you will have heard all of their customers in the personal care and health care world and you will almost certainly have used some of their materials in your day-to-day lives without knowing it. If you have had a COVID-19 vaccine, then you will have had some of their very pure excipients used in the delivery system for those active pharmaceutical ingredients in the vaccines. Prior to working with Croda, I have previously worked with The Institute when I was the Managing Director of Schuco, a London based company who were supplying medical devices to IOCP members and supporting training events and the annual conference. During my time at Schuco, I grew the business year-on-year by working closely with customers to understand the market and their needs and delivered against those needs. I also have a background of working with Boots the Chemists, where I was leading teams developing and testing products and managing regulatory compliance and the groups technical policy. I also worked with regulators and the government to shape the law and regulations for the safety of cosmetic products within the UK.
I look forward to 2022 where we will be providing the infrastructure for engagement and growth from HQ and the delivery will only be successful with a network or tutors, trainers, mentors and auditors. To that end, I am putting out my first call for volunteers so that we can have the whole UK geography covered with eager, helpful members who are interested in getting involved in developing others to be the best that they can be! If you want to get on board at this exciting time for the IoCP, drop me a line telling me what area you would be interested in supporting and what geographical area you would be able to cover.
I aim to be meeting lots of our members through the year to get a better understanding of how you feel that The Institute can be shaped to deliver the things that you need from a great membership organisation. One place that you will be able to meet me personally will be at our AGM, so get the date in your diary if you are able to get to the NEC in May.
Until then, please feel free to reach out to me at anthony@iocp.org.uk. Here’s wishing you a happy, healthy and successful 2022.”
November 14th 2021 is Diabetes awareness day.
There are several events happening this month to raise awareness and to support both patients and practitioners.
Below are some events and webinars that are taking place which may be of interest to you.
The Foot Health Standards are part of work which aims to increase the supply of podiatrists in the NHS, while expanding the role of the support workforce. The Standards will ensure that the NHS recognises the knowledge and skills of the wider foot health support workforce.
The Standards were open to consultation in late 2020. The responses of stakeholders have been used to further develop the Standards and to better understand the issues and challenges around this topic.
The Standards are intended to support the NHS in utilising the full skills mix of the foot health workforce to meet demand, by providing a clear understanding of the footcare treatments that the NHS podiatry support workforce and foot health practitioners can safely perform. The needs and safety of patients is central in this work. Employers and managers can use the Standards to effectively plan, develop, and deploy their support workforce.
From our work with support workers and services across the country we know there is wide variation in their education and training, and how they are deployed. This work will ensure that:
Patients and service users have access to skilled and consistently well-trained support workers who have a defined role within their team
support workers have access to development structures that provide opportunities to follow a richer and more rewarding career pathway
services can address the current variation in support worker roles, banding and progression
support worker roles can be at the heart of improvements in service delivery and transformation, including new models of care.
The main objective is to increase the supply into podiatry and ensure that the NHS recognises the knowledge and skills of the support workforce.
How to use the Standards
NHS managers can use the Standards to understand the treatments that different parts of their foot health support workforces can safely deliver. This will support them in ensuring that they have in place workforces with the skills mix they need to care for patients. This will help managers design services to meet increased patient demand.
Education providers can use the Standards to underpin the development of educational pathways into the NHS podiatry support workforce and onto pre-registration education and training programmes in podiatry. This will support the development and growth of the support and podiatrist workforces.
The development of the Standards was overseen by a Consortium of Foot Health Leaders who gathered to address the problem of the falling recruitment numbers on traditional routes into podiatry. The priority of the Consortium was to develop a foot health career ladder and educational resources that will support and increase the number of podiatrists and podiatry support workers working in the NHS.
The work of the Consortium has enabled a better understanding of the workforce that provides foot care, with the aim of optimising this workforce for the benefit of those who use the services of any practitioner, in England, who work in this arena.
In line with our commitment to current and future education development we have recruited a highly skilled full-time education officer to the team at Head Office. I am therefore delighted to introduce Samantha (Sam) Connolly who joined the team in April.
As you know, as an organisation we have a long history of supporting professional education at all practice levels in podiatry, chiropody and foot health that dates back to our founding years in the 1930’s. Our Licentiate and Diploma courses in Chiropody were highly regarded in the days before the statutory regulation of Chiropody and Podiatry, whilst in more recent years we have provided various types of postgraduate training that has proved enormously popular in subjects as diverse as steroid therapy, advanced regional anaesthesia, platelet-rich plasma, dermal fillers and botulinum toxin in the feet and associated structures.
Currently, the Institute is one of the board members of the Foot Health Consortium that has been set up by NHS Health Education England to take forward the concept of a structured learning framework in Foot Health that will help to address both the subject of the training standard of the (currently) unregulated FHP workforce, as well as the shortage of student recruitment into University podiatry courses by looking to establish a nationally agreed education framework for the FHP workforce. Such an education and recognised qualification framework is hoped to establish opportunities for level 3, 4 and 5 FHP’s being recognised as able to provide support in the NHS workforce, as well as being an entry ‘staircase’ into University education for those who wish to ultimately complete degree training to gain HCPC registration as a Podiatrist.
There are exciting times ahead in our profession, and I know that you will join me in welcoming Sam and supporting her efforts as she takes us forward into that future!
Martin Harvey, Chair.
Samantha Connelly – introduction:
I am a qualified tutor in Further Education and has worked within FE for 13 years both as a tutor and a personal tutor. I also have a BSc (hons) degree in Business and Management along with a Foundation degree in Business Information Systems. I have been in Education and Training for the last 21 years and I cannot think of a better profession than to help and support others to achieve their ambitions. I understand the barriers to learning and also how to motivate learners. I am highly skilled in meeting targets and deadlines and in mentoring and supporting learners. I am committed to Education and Learning and Development and have always looked to further my own knowledge as I believe we can always learn. I have always strived to ensure that every learner maximises their true potential and achieves their goal.
I have coordinated two projects that promoted apprenticeships across Lancashire and built up a network and both apprentices and employers in order to support the project and reach out to all organisations and Schools across Lancashire. Recently I was Learning and Development Coordinator for a port. I developed all of the tracking and monitoring systems and worked with the tutors in the creation of training manuals and all training documentation in line with Health and safety and quality standards. I enjoy developing systems and I am highly skilled at ensuring quality processes are in place to ensure quality of provision.
I am looking forward to this new chapter in my career with the Institute of Chiropodists and Podiatrists and in supporting and assisting all of our learners and members in their further development.
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Samantha Connelly – introduction: