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Allied Health Professions Research and Development Action Plan
FOREWORD
by the Minister for Health and Community Care
It is vital that health and healthcare practice in NHSScotland is based on sound knowledge and a robust evidence base. How reassuring, then, for the thousands of people cared for by allied health professionals in Scotland each year, that the professionals themselves have identified research and development as a vital priority for action.
AHPs know how important research and development activity is to good quality, safe and effective patient care. A wide range of activities relating to the clinical effectiveness/evidence-based practice agenda is already underway, with AHPs in practice and academic settings carrying out innovative research that has led to improved services for patients. This provides a solid foundation from which future AHP research activity can grow.
But the potential of AHPs - all AHPs - as consumers and practitioners of research is not yet fully realised. Support is now needed to enable them to become fully research-aware, research-active, evidence-based professions.
Patients expect to receive high quality services, with AHPs doing the right thing to the right patient, in the right place and at the right time. Patients should be confident that any treatments offered are based on the best available evidence. For this to happen, all AHPs must have access to reliable current evidence and must participate in evaluating clinical practice on an ongoing basis.
This action plan for research and development in the allied health professions in Scotland puts in place the initiatives that will allow AHPs to move to the next stage. It does so by setting out a range of measures that focus on key elements essential to building AHP research infrastructure and capacity. It spells out the importance of partnership in driving the research and development agenda forward. And it puts in place the kinds of support that individual AHPs need to develop themselves as research-focused practitioners.
The action plan gives AHPs the lead they have asked for in relation to developing their research and development activity. But most important, it will increase the public's already strong confidence in the excellence and reliability of services delivered by the allied health professions.
Malcolm Chisholm, MSP
Minister for Health and Community Care
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