Who is Looking Out for the Small and Vulnerable Allied Health Professions?

Authors

Michael Kay, Nicky Eddison

Published in

Journal of multidisciplinary healthcare. Volume 19. Pages 628543. Epub Oct 28, 2026.

Abstract

Small and vulnerable Allied Health Professions (AHPs) now face a serious threat to their sustainability within the National Health Service (NHS) workforce. NHS England has defined these professions as those with training intakes below 1,500 per annum, where pipeline fragility risks workforce outturn being insufficient to meet service needs. Several professions have been identified as having the highest levels of concern such as Prosthetists and Orthotists, Podiatrists, Art, Music, and Drama Therapists, and Operating Department Practitioners. The real risk of sustainability and the ability to deliver national targets for patient care lies within the recruitment and retention staying ahead of the attrition of the workforce relative to the population growth and healthcare needs. With 11,952 AHPs leaving the workforce in 2025 and small and vulnerable AHPs seeing a decline within recruitment and retention at the 4 year point of first registration of marginalised groups. This article contends that the sustainability of these professions is not a niche workforce issue but a test of whether health policy can recognise strategic value before service structure reaches crisis. It concludes that smaller professions should be treated as priority assets and that national workforce planning should strengthen rather than dilute AHP leadership, professional diversity, and targeted support. Simultaneously, the limited professional diversity already evident in senior AHP leadership structure risks reinforcing the dominance of the larger AHPs and perpetuating the lack of understanding of the smaller professions' roles, skills, and system contribution. The significance of these findings is heightened by the current restructuring of national health leadership, including the abolition of the NHS England and the absorption of functions into the Department of Health and Social Care (DHSC). With the transition of stewardship of the NHS workforce to the DHSC, the new stewards must acknowledge the concerns raised to protect an already vulnerable group of professionals to be able to deliver the NHS 10 year plan to the people at the centre of all of this, our patients!

PMID:
42973464
Bibliographic data and abstract were imported from PubMed on 03 Nov 2026.

Read full publication at:
Please sign in to see all details.

Stats

1-terrible, 9-excellent. How would you rate this publication? Sign in in to submit your rating.

Post a comment

You need to be signed in to post comments. You can sign in here.

Comments

There are no comments yet.