Celebrating our allied health profession colleagues

Growing up in Folkestone, Laura Jeffrey knew she wanted to carry on the legacy of her family’s contribution to healthcare – her mother is a retired named nurse for children protection and midwife and her father a retired GP. Now based in Crowborough with her own family, Laura is a physiotherapist in the East Sussex Children’s Integrated Therapies Team.

She has been a physiotherapist since she graduated from university in 2005 and began her career on a rotation between different services at Addenbrookes Hospital, soon find her passion of making a difference to the lives of children and their families.

Laura explained: “I realised the value I could bring to children through physiotherapy and helping them realise their potential, particularly when working with teenagers living with cancer.

“The years I spent at Addenbrookes have been so formative to my career, I really value every interaction I had with my patients and knowing I was able to make a positive difference during their time in hospital, helping them to achieve their own goals and bringing a positive dimension to their cancer experience.”

Reflecting on one patient, Laura gets emotional thinking about her: “I always try to be an advocate for each patient and help them achieve their goals, once a young girl I was supporting told me “You’re the only one who believes in me!” – it’s something that has always stuck with me and makes me try best for each person I get to meet.”

Now working as part of the community therapies team, Laura continues to support children every day, “Being a physio, the opportunity I get to help and empower is humbling and unique in this ever-changing climate of pressures while working in healthcare. I look to help them go beyond just getting better – I want to help each child to be able to live their life to their fullest potential.”

Simon Pendleton first started working at #TeamKCHFT in 1997 as a podiatrist. Now, with a career spanning more than 25 years, he is Head of Podiatry and a Clinical Specialist Podiatrist for the Vulnerable Foot.

Simon explained: “I always knew I wanted to work in healthcare when I was younger. I remember taking a look in the careers library at sixth form and found out about podiatry. I thought it looked really interesting with a balance between hands-on care, surgery and working with patients – so I decided to go for it.”

Simon graduated from Durham School of Podiatry and hasn’t looked back. Now, his specialism see’s him get involved in the NHS regionally and nationally as well: “I get to be involved in developing new patient pathways for people with diabetes and foot care, working closely with other healthcare professionals to make sure that the service we offer is best for the patient.”

And the future for the podiatry and podiatric surgery services? It’s very bright. Simon explains: “We’ve just secured some funding from Health Education England to train a new registrar and podiatric surgeon. It’s a really exciting time for our team to be able to grow and to be able to offer more as a service.”

“We are in a unique position in the south east as there is only one other podiatric surgery provider. We have big plans to work with colleagues in orthopaedics and grow our provision by working together. At the end of the day, everything we do is for our patients and we are looking forward to being able to offer more.”

If you would like to see a podiatrist, the service accepts self-referrals. Find out more here.

Kenny Yinka-Asebisi first joined Kent Community Health NHS Foundation Trust (KCHFT) 21 years ago, when she moved to Ashford in 2002 with her husband and young daughter from Lagos, Nigeria.

Since then, she has gone from strength to strength, establishing her family unit by welcoming a second daughter and growing in her physiotherapy career.

Taking every opportunity she was offered, Kenny became an advanced physiotherapy practitioner (APP) in 2009. This is was a pioneering role at the time, where the clinician diagnose, refer and treat a patient in the same appointment.

Kenny explains: “I love being an APP. I get to work with complex patients, often with multiple issues and get to work with them to build a treatment plan and have a positive outcome for their condition.

“I’m really passionate about making a difference to each patient I meet. My philosophy is to treat each person how I would want to be treated. So, I will often go above and beyond to make a difference, treating their condition, but listening to the patient, advocating to them and going the extra mile so they leave the appointment feeling valued and cared for.”

Since 2022, Kenny has been seconded to work part-time for NHS England as the south east international recruitment lead for allied health professions.

Kenny explains: “I was once an international recruit when I first came to the UK to join KCHFT, so I love being able to use my experience to support new recruits who are taking their first steps to relocate and join the NHS now.

“I love being able to help create the support package for the new starters. I see my role as being a bit like a big sister to them. I can relate to how they are feeling. I have built my life here and raised my family – it’s a big step to move to another country. I get to help make their transition that bit easier by listening and helping, bridging the gap and making their move easier. I wish I had someone like this to help me when I first moved.”

Emma Charlton celebrated her 20-year anniversary as a speech and language therapist in September.

Inspiration came for Emma’s career when she was young, and she met a friend at her Girl Guide unit in Bexhill who used sign language. This ignited her passion for helping people to learn how to speak and she began her journey to where she is today.

Emma, 42 who lives in Hastings with her son, started her journey with school work experience placements with the team she leads now. She explains: “I met the service when I was in sixth form, observed sessions and applied for you university at the earliest opportunity I could with my heart set on becoming a speech and language therapist.”

“I went to the University of Wales Institute for my degree, coming back to East Sussex for my clinical placements and working during the holidays in Hastings with the team. I still get to work in the schools I used to visit now.”

Emma continued: “Being able to support my patients with their speech, inspire their confidence and make a difference to their lives is the best bit of my job.”

“I love what I get to do every day, I’ve always wanted to work with children. My team is like a family, we support each other and help each other and I am really proud of everything we get to achieve together for our patients.”

Fiona Hallsworth, Clinical Lead Physiotherapist for Neuro, first joined the NHS 15 years ago as a physiotherapy technician. She said, “I loved physio but never could have afforded to go to university. My wonderful supervisor at the time persuaded me to apply for a part-time secondment scheme and then gave me lots of moral support during the next four years while I studied for my physiotherapy degree. It was a similar structure to the apprenticeships now.”

Since qualifying 10 years ago, Fiona now works with apprentices who were in the same boat as her at the start of her career. She explains: “I try to pay it forward, sharing my experience and knowledge to our apprentices and offer the same support and encouragement to them that I had when I was still learning. I think it’s great that we are growing the next generation of physiotherapists at Kent Community Health NHS Foundation Trust.”

Fiona continued: “I get to work with people with neurological conditions and the thing that drives me is helping patients to have some quality of life while living with their condition.”

Jess Zubek and Rose Jakeman started their journey to becoming first contact dietitians (FCD) in October 2022. Jess focusses on malnutrition and frailty in adults and Rose focusses on restrictive eating and allergies in children.

The FCD role has been developed specifically for primary care to reduce pressure on GPs and improve patient outcomes by making sure the patient is seen by the right person at the right time.

FCDs can see patients with undifferentiated and undiagnosed conditions within an agreed scope of practice, meaning they can identify red flags in our patients.

To enable them to do this, they are learning new clinical assessment skills relevant to their roles such as cardiac, respiratory and abdominal assessments, which is a new opportunity for dietitians. They are also building upon existing skills to make sure they can provide holistic patient centered care.

Working in primary care in GP surgeries means they are working in a multidisciplinary team all of the time with GPs, nurses, pharmacists, physios and other healthcare professionals.

The role of FCD has been established in other professions for some time such as physiotherapy, paramedics, podiatry and occupational therapy, but it is very new to dietetics, and the duo are among the first in the country to be going through this process.

Jess and Rose, explain: “It continues to be an exciting and challenging process which has changed and developed as we have gone along and we are sure the role of the FCD will continue to expand and adapt over time as we work out which areas we can apply our dietetic skills to add the most value in primary care.

“We will achieve FCD registration soon, which can be further built upon in time to reach Advanced Clinical practitioner status. Hopefully in the future this means we can support more dietitians to develop to become FCDs in primary care.”

Joe Earl, 25, is a physiotherapy apprentice at Kent Community Health NHS Foundation Trust.

Despite qualifying as a science teacher, Joe joined the apprenticeship as he knew he wanted to combine his passions of being active and supporting people.

He explains: “I’m really sporty and have always been keen on staying active and getting involved in something. When I became a teacher, I realised how much I missed that part of me – so knew I needed to combine my passions together for my next step in my career and I joined KCHFT as a therapy assistant. This kickstarted my love for physiotherapy, so when the apprenticeship opportunity came up – I had to grab it.”

Joe, now in his third of four year on his course, loves getting to work while he learns about things, he continued: “I love that I get to get hands on and put into practice things I’ve learnt about. It’s so interesting working with the patients – it’s a real mixture. I’ve had placements with different teams including paediatric, community hospitals and in the community, I get to run an amputee clinic too where I have met some really interesting people. The whole apprenticeship is a really unique experience.”

If anyone is thinking about applying for an apprenticeship in the future, Joe cannot recommend the experience enough: “If you are ready to change your career and want a next step, do it. It’s so worth it – a really well led experience and you’re always really supported. I’m so pleased I took the chance, it’s changed my life.”

At just 12 years-old Jeffrey Appiah, realised he wanted to help people. Encouraged by his sport physio at Whyteleafe Football Club, Jerry, and his passion and knowledge – Jeffrey knew he wanted to become a physiotherapist: “Jerry was great – he was so bright and always knew what to do when I’d injured myself or pulled a muscle – I was so impressed, it inspired me to want to be the same and help people.”

After graduating from Keele University in 2020, Jeffrey joined #TeamKCHFT as a rotational physiotherapist. Now, at 24 he is part of the Children’s Therapies Team in east Kent, working with children and young people every day and making a difference. He said: “I love working with children, I get a real buzz from it – they are so much fun and we can be creative when setting exercises for them – you really notice the impact you are having and the treatment working.”

When asked about the best piece Jeffrey had been given, he explained: “I was told to always put myself in the patient’s shoes – not literally of course – but imagine I was there with the same condition or problem – it really makes you think about how to plan what is best for them – they are more than the condition that you are treating.”

And what’s next for Jeffrey? No longer involved in competitive football, but he meets up with friends at the weekend and plays five-a-side football every Sunday: “I like to keep active and play sport, but at least now I know what to do if my friends or I pull a muscle.”