The NHS Digital Academy has launched a new education programme to help physiotherapists and other allied health professionals (AHPs) in the UK build their digital and data skills.

It has been developed in collaboration with the Chartered Society of Physiotherapy (CSP) and Keele University, EL Healthcare Education and other AHP professional bodies.

The programme has been fully funded so is free to access for all UK AHPs, including students and support workers, and is open for those not working in the NHS.

It is module based with bite sized content for learners to access it in their own time around work or other studying commitments. It is supported by multimedia, interactive content, case studies from real AHPs, and reflective activities to support the AHP to apply the learning in their own team, service or setting.

Catering to learners’ needs

Prabha Vijayakumar, NHS England chief AHP information officer, said: “The training is designed so that it caters to the needs of the learner, not just one profession, one setting or one level of professional maturity. It is flexible and adaptable to the organisations and to the skills gaps of the learner.”

“We want digital and data to be comfortable for AHPs at all levels. That will create digitally mature and data enabled AHP services, and ultimately, visible digital AHP leadership”

Euan McComiskie, CSP’s health informatics lead, said “We’ve collaborated with AHP colleagues and academic experts to make this education programme work for all learners regardless of their digital or data expertise at the start of the course.

“The interactive elements of the programme and the reflective activities will keep the learner engaged and give them personalised outputs in their part of the AHP world.”