Leadership in the world of speech and language therapy with Carrie Biddle

We discuss all things leadership with Carrie Biddle, therapies clinical governance and quality lead for The Royal Cornwall hospitals Trust and SW Region AHP Leadership fellow for Health Education England. In this conversation we cover everyday leadership, leadership in a crisis such as Covid-19, different leadership styles and how SLTs' training in communication is so important to good leadership.

Carrie also talks about the need for professions to work together, holistically focusing on the whole person when delivering therapy, but having an awareness of where their skills crossover with those of other professions and valuing the unique skills they bring.

Please be aware that the views expressed are those of the guests and not the RCSLT.

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Transcript

Speaker Key:
 
UFS:        UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE SPEAKER
CB:          CARRIE BIDDLE
UMS:      UNIDENTIFIED MALE SPEAKER
L:              LUCY
H:            HOST
 
UFS - 0:00:00
Hi Carrie. 

CB - 0:00:03
Hello, morning! 

UMS - 0:00:10
Morning, Carrie. 

CB - 0:00:11
Hello, can you hear me?  Sorry, I'm just setting myself up. 

UMS - 0:00:16
That’s all right.  There’s just three of us.  I don’t know what’s happening with the others, so just bear with me while I just see what’s going on [overspeaking] find the others. 

CB - 0:00:34
Lucy, how are you? 

L - 0:00:35
Yeah, I'm okay, how are you? 

CB - 0:00:37
Yeah, not too bad, thank you. 

- 0:00:40 - MUSIC PLAYS -

H - 0:00:45
Welcome to another RCSLT podcast.  I travelled to Penzance in Cornwall to talk to Carrie Biddle.  Carrie is the Therapies Clinical Governance and Quality Lead for the Royal Cornwall Hospital’s Trust and southwest region, the AHP Leadership Fellow for Health Education England and the co-founder of the Allied Health Professions Day, which aims to raise awareness of the importance of AHPs.

We recorded this podcast just as it was becoming quite clear that COVID-19 was going to be an unprecedented challenge for the NHS, and indeed the healthcare systems of all countries across the globe. 

- 0:01:18 - MUSIC PLAYS -

CB - 0:01:21
Is your event still all right to go ahead next week? 

UFS - 0:01:25
I don’t know.  Paul’s advice was actually [inaudible 0:01:28] business as usual from Friday up until yesterday, but an issue that we’ve got is we had over 120, we’re down to 80.  People are pulling out left, right and centre – which is understandable.  It’s understandable because a) it’s in London where it’s the highest level of the coronavirus, and also people are actually needed with organisations. 

I'm being pulled into [gold command 0:01:58] today, that’s why I'm on the call because we’ve escalated into major incidents within our organisation…

[FADES OUT]

H - 0:02:09
In addition to Carrie’s leadership role, she still works as a clinician some of the time.  And this is an important part of Carrie’s leadership philosophy, that leaders one way or another need to have an understanding of what’s happening at the coalface.  It’s all very well making decisions in the abstract at a high level, but it’s really important to know what impact those decisions are having on the wards or in the community. 

- 0:02:34 - MUSIC PLAYS -

CB - 0:02:39
So this is one of two medical wards that we’ve got here at West Cornwall.  I cover them as the… I'm part of the Adult Speech Therapy Team, basically at the Royal Cornwall Hospital.  There’s a mixture of women’s bays and men’s bays down here. 

They’re just starting to get lunches out now, so I'm going to go in here and see these ladies, is that okay?

Are you all right my lovely?  Let me just get some wipes a minute.  I think you’ve just spilt your drink, that’s all.  Don’t worry, just watch you don’t slip a minute.  Were you chasing the chocolate?   Let me just grab some… Just watch yourself, I don’t want you to slip over a minute, my love.  Just wait there. 

Your lunch is just coming.  It’s lunchtime.  Right, let me just… Are your socks wet?  Hmm, they’re a bit soggy.  We might need to get you some dry socks on, my lovely, all right?  Pop your feet there a sec.  Let’s try that one.  Yeah, if you pop your feet back there a minute – that area’s dry.  We’ll just get you some new red socks in a sec. 

[Beeping noise] Who’s beeping?  The bed’s beeping.  You ladies are causing havoc down here in the corner!  Just let me wipe this up before you walk through, lovely, so you don’t slip.

- 0:04:40 - MUSIC PLAYS - 

H - 0:04:53
After Carrie’s rounds, we drove to the beach with a really beautiful view of St Michael’s Mount.  We grabbed some lunch at a local café – really excellent burgers, I can recommend them – and we had a chat about a range of topics, from COVID-19 to leadership, AHPs and the future of healthcare. 

- 0:05:15 - MUSIC PLAYS -

H - 0:05:26
So I guess the first thing is we are here in the middle of a coronavirus outbreak, which is quite scary.

CB - 0:05:34  
 We are.  Yeah. 

H - 0:05:36
What do you think it means for SLTs in particular?  Do you think it presents any particular challenges for the SLT community that that’s worth thinking about? 

CB - 0:05:46
Obviously there will be Speech and Language Therapists working in healthcare in hospitals that will be impacted and affected by this, because some of the symptoms if people are found to have the virus is that it can have respiratory implications.  Obviously where we have speech therapists working with people that have swallowing problems or when their respiratory system gets compromised they can present with swallowing problems. 

When we’re thinking about the cohorts of people that it is actually impacting on and having biggest implications for, it’s our elderly people, it’s vulnerable people, it’s people with comorbidity.  Those are the people ewe tend to see in adult services in acute settings, so our frontline staff will come into contact with this.

Thinking more widely about those Speech and Language Therapists that work out in the community, in community settings in case homes and in day centres, or those that work out in schools, then everyone is going to be affected by this and how they work and what they’re asked to do. 

Depending on where they decide and what decisions are made about where staff are going to be deployed to work, or where you’re going to be asked to go, or not to go, people don’t know really on more than a day-to-day basis what they are and aren’t going to be doing. 

H - 0:07:06
It’s fair to say this is an unprecedented challenge for the NHS, really. 

It was interesting when we were chatting before in the car, you said we often talk in the abstract about in emergency situations then leadership styles have to change and you used the phrase which I have heard  a couple of times before is, this is the time of command and control leadership. 

I don’t know if you want to talk a bit to that.   

CB - 0:07:33
Yeah.  In terms of leadership, there are different styles of leadership, or a continuum of leadership, that you might use.  So you might be an affiliative leader, you might be a democratic leader, you might be more coaching in your style, or you might be an autocratic ‘do as I say’ leader.  In times of crisis, or in times when we’re in an emergency and we just need… everyone needs to know what’s happening, they need to know their jobs and they need to know what’s asked of them and expected of them right now then we go into command and control.

So we have MAJAX, so major incidents plans, that are there – these business continuity plans – of what do we do if a major situation arises, be that a terrorist attack, be that a massive accident with a cruise ship that keels over in Falmouth Harbour and we need to get people off the boats, or a massive aeroplane crash, or a corona outbreak.  Some of these things that were not planned for, we weren’t expecting and we have to just be ready to respond and know where am I, what is asked of me and how am I expected to respond and react if I get symptoms or something happens to me. 

Because this is not just about us delivering the healthcare to support people with it, we could be the people that need that care ourselves. 

H - 0:08:55
Well, scary times, but I guess we’ve got to move on and talk about other things.

I guess one of the reasons that we really wanted to come and talk to you is that you have this really interesting role in creating the Allied Health Professions International Day.  I wonder if you can talk a little bit about that and why you did it.

CB - 0:09:20
AHP Day started from a conversation on the back of a bus between myself and my colleague, Rachael Brandreth, who’s the Dietetic Professional Lead at the Royal Cornwall Hospital’s Trust, where we had been in a series of meetings on this day around allied health professions in the workplace and around strategy and in around leadership. 

And we had felt very frustrated the decisions we felt were being made about us without us and from a position where people didn’t really understand that we wanted to be more actively involved and engage in what was happening from an equal position, so a position of being equals that we had something to offer and we wanted to work in collaboration with our nursing colleagues and our wider medical and healthcare colleagues in ways that we didn’t feel we were being able to.  And we felt like we were in a bit of a broken record situation that we kept saying the same thing. 

I remember saying to Rachel on that day on the bus is, look, we can either sit and we can go through the why don’t they understand us, why don’t they get what we’re about or what the ask is, but that just sounds a bit like moaning, and actually that doesn’t take us anywhere, that doesn’t shape any future interactions or things that will happen.  So how about we take action.  Let’s turn our frustration into positive action and let’s start a new conversation.

It was just coming up to the National Nurses’ Day.  So we were saying, oh well, they’ve got a day for nurses where they celebrate and everyone knows what a nurse does – who don’t we do that? 

So we knew that we all had, as our own professions within the 14 allied health, a day where we celebrated being radiographers, operational department practitioners, speech therapists.  But we said, well, we don’t have a collective and, actually, we’re stronger together.  So we just put it out there on Twitter and said, do we have a day?  Maybe there is one we just didn’t even know about, which would have been a bit of a shame!  But the response was, no, we don’t.

Then someone suggested, well, who do we have to ask?  And I'm a big one for everyday leadership, and we can all lead and I believe that we don’t need to ask permission; we do too much asking permission in the NHS.  And I said, well, we’re just going to do it then.   

H - 0:11:38
Presumably, there’s awareness.  It’s awareness of the allied health profession [overspeaking].

CB - 0:11:46
In the first year, it was really about celebrating who we are first.  Instead of saying, you don’t understand us; why do you treat… you don’t get it, we say, actually, this is who we are and let’s put forward a positive position about who we are and what we do, what we value in ourselves and what those that we work with value about us, so that you may see us and reframe us in a different way.  And you may see opportunities to engage with us in different ways.

So it was about celebrating who we are, appreciating what we do for ourselves and raising awareness.  In doing that, and doing that publicly, we would raise awareness with other people, who would have a better understanding, then, of who we are and what we do.   

H - 0:12:29
So, as of this moment, when we talk about…

[FADES OUT]

- 0:12:30 - MUSIC PLAYS -

H - 0:12:30
In the UK, the allied health professions consists of art therapists, diagnostic radiographers, dieticians, drama therapists, music therapists, occupational therapists, operating department practitioners, orthoptists, osteopaths, [paramedics 0:12:43], physiotherapists, podiatrists, prosthesis, orthotists, speech and language therapists and therapeutic radiographers. 

Within the allied health professions, there are large groups like physios and OTs, but also groups that are classified as small, but vital. 

CB - 0:13:00
In terms of why it’s so vital is, actually, podiatrists look after people’s feet, they save lives, they save limbs.  If we don’t have a robust consistent sustainable podiatry workforce then that will mean that there is likely to be an increase in amputations and the consequences and impact that has financially and on people’s lives in the longer-term is really significant.  And someone else is going to have to pick up some of those skills and work in relation to managing people with these difficulties. 

You may think, well, that might fall back to your tissue viability nurses or district; well, there’s not enough of them either. 

So this is a real, real concern.  We are talking about people can lose their lives if they lose their blood supply and flow to their feet and they end up having to have amputations.  This is significant stuff.  This workforce is really vital to us. 

H - 0:14:00
That’s what I find so interesting when you say that because…

[FADES OUT]

H - 0:14:03
This really illustrates the importance of raising awareness of the allied health professions within the NHS, but also with the broader public.  Carrie spoke about the latest We are the NHS campaigns, which are now more diverse in terms of the people represented, but also the professions represented.

The increasing specialisation and complexity of healthcare is allowing people to live much longer, but healthcare workers are having to deal with comorbidity of chronic conditions, which requires a range of specialists. 

We then went on to talk about how healthcare is changing. 

- 0:14:35 - MUSIC PLAYS -

H - 0:14:36
So you were talking again about how you think the NHS… is changing, or needs to change?

CB - 0:14:42
Both.  I think it is changing.  In my opinion, it’s not changing fast enough, but I have a big thing about pace and speed. 

But we’ve known for 25 years what was going to be happening around this time of 2020, what our population health would look like, what our demographics, in terms of the number of people that are over 65 with comorbidities and higher care needs and support needs was going to look like before we got to this century.  And yet, I don’t think we’ve done enough, soon enough, to think about how we're going to manage that and future generations coming through. 

H - 0:15:25  
 What’s your vision, then, of let’s say 20 years ago I had appointed you as a Chief Executive Officer of the NHS and you could have done what… What would healthcare look like differently, or what do you think we should…?  Yeah, what is the model that you see we’re moving towards?

CB - 0:15:40  
 I think it’s easy to say now because we’ve got hindsight, and I don’t think that we… I'm not sure that we would have seen such… well, maybe it’s just that we’re more publicly aware of it – the issues and the prevalence of mental health issues in people’s lives. 

For me, we need to start thinking about how we support people to lead their best lives as people, not view someone who walks in with an ailment or with a disorder.  So I'm a whole person, I bring my whole physical and mental health with me to healthcare. 

I need you to address me as a whole person, not look at me as someone who might have Parkinson’s disease and put me on a Parkinson’s care pathway just to deal with that, because actually, I'm not just myself, I’m part of a network. I have a partner, I have children – they might have needs.  I may be a carer for others, I might need care myself. 

So that interdependency that people have – either with those around them and in their community – and treating people of whole selves is where we need to be.  We need to work with people, not treat ailments.  And that’s a real shift.
   
H - 0:16:54
Do you think we were far too ailment-focused, just focusing on this particular physical disease and there might be a multiplicity of ailments, plus there’s the mental health thing, plus there’s the context of the situation in which the person’s living and their dependence.  So there’s a whole social picture. 

CB - 0:17:07  
 Absolutely.  I feel we were very much geared towards we would fix or provide a solution and support based on what those individual problems were in a very narrow way.  Whereas now what we say is, okay, we need to look at the whole person.  We need to look at everything that’s going on for them and we need to wrap the best care and support around them, or help them. 

So health coaching is a massive thing.  How do we help them to help themselves in the best way they can?  Because one of the biggest things we see is people’s motivation to do that.  They come and they expect the healthcare to fix for them or deliver for them, and they’ve very much in that doctor/patient – almost like an adult/child relationship. 

H - 0:17:50
It’s quite paternalistic, the way it used to be, yeah.

CB - 0:17:52
So we need to shift from that to where we are less parent/child, to an adult/adult interaction, and to be able to help people to help themselves. 

H - 0:18:02
It’s a culture shift that you’re talking about [overspeaking]. 

CB - 0:18:05
It is a culture shift.  There’s one thing healthcare, people working in healthcare and people working in health and social care understanding that and going, yes, this is what we need to do.  But we also need to take our people in our local communities and our families with us, so that they understand that the way they will interact and the relationships they will have with those in health and social care will look and feel different. 

H - 0:18:32
Right.  Okay, and you think the NHS is beginning to do some of this stuff? 

CB - 0:18:35
Absolutely, and I think this is threaded through the long-term plan of where we want to go…

[FADES OUT]

- 0:18:42 - MUSIC PLAYS -

H - 0:18:44
So in talking about how the NHS needs to change going forward, Carrie brought up portfolio careers, so that you might so SLT part-time while maintaining another job, or allows for a very high degree of specialisation, which gives us a more flexible workforce. 

CB - 0:19:00
And I think for the future, when we look around what people want now, people want portfolio careers.  So they might not want it as their whole job, they might want it as part of their job.

So we need to be really open and accessible and flexible in what our offers are, both in employment and in training to enable people to access and come and join us, really. 

H - 0:19:26
Is that where we are at the moment?  Because that doesn’t strike me that… I accept that not all SLTs work for the NHS.  But the NHS, how is the NHS with portfolio careers at the moment, or is that something they need to address? 

CB - 0:19:42
It’s starting to embrace it, and starting to engage in it.  We need it more to be more systems in our [to think 0:19:48] systems and work in systems ways, so that we’ve got a more agile and flexible workforce anyway.

In terms of some of the specialisms that we have in speech therapy and what we need from people, actually they might not be full-time, whole-time equivalent jobs, they might be a small amount and people might want to go on and develop in that, but want to do something else.  So we don’t want to lose…

One, it’s about retaining staff and offering those opportunities as portfolio.  But it’s also about people that may be looking as a second career, or they want to do part of what they do now, but they want to do something else as well, and those that might be looking to return to practice. 

H - 0:20:28
Right. So what you’re saying is that within a trust, if you’re highly specialised, there might not be sufficient people within a trust to justify a full-time position for an SLT who specialises in, I don’t know, a very particular thing. 

CB - 0:20:42
Yes.  But that doesn’t mean that we don’t need… [overspeaking]

H - 0:20:47
We still have to offer the service. 

CB - 0:20:47
… we still need it.  And in the past, people have kind of gone, oh, well, if it doesn’t make a full-time or a half-time job then we’re not going to get someone.  I don’t think that’s the case.  I think people are far more flexible and want to pick and choose a bit, and have a bit more of variety in what they’re doing. 

H - 0:21:07
So it’s a win-win that we can offer a better service to our patients and then create more interesting careers that better suit people in the profession. 

CB - 0:21:18
Absolutely. 

H - 0:21:21
How do we advocate for this?  What do we need to do?  Who do I need to fight with, or talk with, or advocate for to help bring about some of these changes? 

CB - 0:21:31
I think you need to get involved with your workforce planning and your organisational development teams to have conversations about, actually, what does our workforce for the future look like and how are we going to get there? 

These are conversations that generally have happened at organisational level, but are now happening at system level, about what do we need.  And the starting point that we talk about is, don’t think about your profession, think about the skills that are needed.  If we’re going back to that piece around, actually, I'm a whole person that needs healthcare and you need to wrap the care I need around me; you need to know: what are the skills that are needed in our healthcare workforce resource pot that will help support people?  And then you work from the skills back.  So think skills [over role/overall 0:22:23].

And this is the biggest challenge, because when I’ve been going out doing pieces of work around skills with a variety of AHPs, we talk about what are your unique skills that are only bespoke…

[FADES OUT]

- 0:22:42 - MUSIC PLAYS - 

H - 0:22:48
On the one hand, everyone needs to get involved with workforce planning and be strong advocates with8in the trust, or whatever the workplace may be for how we need to restructure roles.  And it needs to be with this whole person mindset.  But then Carrie raised a more fundamental issue, which really requires a complete change in approach, which is to focus on our skillsets rather than our professions.

This is because which tasks are performed by which professions can sometimes be arbitrary.  Importantly, there is a degree of overlap, so we need to think about which skills are absolutely particular to us, but then also identify which skills can be shared, extended and enhanced with other AHPs, but also other healthcare professions. 

- 0:23:31 - MUSIC PLAYS -

CB - 0:23:35
So in that sense, we’re saying, if you say to people, what are my unique skills and they say, oh well, I'm really… I’ve done this with a group of podiatrists and tissue viability nurses.  And they did it separately and then when we looked there were a number of things that they felt were unique to them but actually they both had the same skills.  And when you look at it in a Venn diagram, so you have your two circles that overlap, actually there's more in terms of skills that can often sit in that middle bit where your diagrams overlap. 

What’s actually unique is really quite specific.  But because we’ve never been asked to think in that way before…  Some people would say, oh well, doing dysphagia and swallowing assessments.  Well, no, that’s not just something that Speech and Language Therapists can do, other people can be trained.  We have a multi-professional framework to enable you to be a dysphagia practitioner.

H - 0:24:28
This is quite arbitrary, the professions and which skills fall within them.  They’re not plutonic perfect ideals of professions, really. 

CB - 0:24:36
No.  And again, sometimes when you think about the crossover on your Venn diagram between skills that an OT and a speech therapist has.  So there’s that element around cognitive, attention, and the way we are processing works and how we do things, there’ll be overlap in skills of how we work that actually, in some instances, you might say, well, that will come from an OT and other instances it would come from a speech therapist.

H - 0:25:04
So we establish this overlap of skills.  Are you saying that just helps us resource more efficiently? 

CB - 0:25:10
Yes.  So part of the problem that we face is that there is not enough people – there's not enough nurses, there’s not enough doctors, not enough speech therapists, not enough physios – to fulfil the need that we will potentially need, and if we were going to do the long-term plan it’s absolute justice and follow it to the tee. 

We don’t have enough now, we have vacancies all over the place, we’re already looking at new ways of working to account for the fact that we can’t get the doctors and nurses in.  But we’re all challenged in that way.  We have to think differently about how we use our resource that is our workforce.  And if we think skills overall, we can be better.  But that does mean not just multi-professional learning, but inter-professional learning, where you’ve got those crossover bits. 

H - 0:25:59
So the SLT could help the OT perhaps improve a little bit of what they understand around [soiling 0:26:05], as an example.  I don’t know if that’s a good example.

CB - 0:26:07
[Inaudible 0:26:07] think about, and that’s where you’ve got to be clear about, what am I trying to do? Am I enhancing your skills so that we know what that looks like?  Am I extending your skills so that you can do a bit more on a particular… and get signed off as a competent at doing something so that you can use you… you’re there anyway, as opposed to be coming in as a separate person, you could do a bit more and be able to manage.

So, for example, where you have speech therapists that might work as part of a multidisciplinary home enteral feeding, or holistic feeding team.  At the moment, they would just go in and think about the oropharyngeal dysphagia element.  We’ve already got dieticians in extended skills looking at how they manage a rig or a PEG feeding tube.  Actually, if I'm there and I'm talking about, can we, is there some more way that we can think more holistically about nutritional management or skills, while I'm there I can do this check.  So you’re not going to do everything, but it’s being really clear.  And this it the point, is that you have to be clear and you have to know…

[FADES OUT]

- 0:27:16 - MUSIC PLAYS -

H - 0:27:20
Healthcare and the NHS needs to evolve and evolve quickly if we’re going to meet these challenging and highly complex needs – not to mention all the funding challenges the NHS is likely to face.


Again, it takes us back to leadership, to everyday leadership, where everyone, no matter what level you’re at, can take the initiative to move things forward.  So whether it’s sharing skills at the MDT, or proposing new ways of working, or advocating for restructuring of jobs within the trust or hospital. 

And Carrie feels very, very strongly that SLTs in particular make for good leaders. 

CB - 0:28:11
I think that, from my experience, having trained and studied in communication, how communication works, what effective communication is, how you do it, what it looks like, what are the total modalities of it, both in terms of a mechanical way, a psychological way, a neurological way, I feel we really understand that piece.  And communication is such a key skill and attribute of an effective leader.

When you look at staff surveys, when you look at complaints, when you look at when things go wrong, communication is always in there.  And the opposite, when you look at when people say why they were a great leader, what are the attributes that made it successful?  Consistent clear communication is key.  So understanding what that looks like, understanding the consequences and implications when things go wrong with communication – either from a developmental or an incident perspective and how you therefore have to work differently.  You need to adapt your communication, you need to be mindful of how you can convey messages in different ways to different people.  That’s what we’re trained in; that’s what we do.

And I do think communication is such an innate human thing for us in terms of how we’ve trained and what we’re about that we value it and we value connectivity between humans.

And when you think about leaders are only leaders if people choose to follow, you have to have that touchpoint, that connectivity, inspire a something, or connect with hearts and minds in a way that people go, wow, I'm coming too. 

H - 0:30:02
So you’re saying, the profession gives you a bit of a head-start, really, in terms of leadership.

CB - 0:30:06
I think so.  I think we have skills, and I’ve certainly found that the skills I’d use as a clinician, working as a Speech and Language Therapist have carried me in really good stead in how I can be an effective leader and work well in a team with others.

H - 0:30:29
Speaking of that, which obviously today you are in a leadership position at the moment, but you do maintain one day a week in a clinical setting.  I wonder if you can talk a little bit about that choice and why you did it and how you think it helps. 

CB - 0:30:43
For me, it’s about… there’s having a direct line and ability to see things at different points.  Although you look at my diary and it’s rather chaotic, at best, and colourful and active, I am able to go up and down that wire, basically.  I never lose sight of the frontline delivery of patients and patient care, because I have touch with it every single week. 

So for me, not only do I have direct contact with patients and their relatives, I have direct contact with those around me delivering that frontline care, and then with their managers, and then with senior operational leads, and then with regional leads and then with national leads.

So that is just a real direct zip-wire that I am up and down.

H - 0:31:37
So when you’re talking at a national level, you can say, well, I was on the ward the other day and I had this experience and this is where it’s going wrong. 

I mean, should more NHS leaders be doing that?

CB - 0:31:49
I think it’s tricky because there’s a lot to be done and everyone’s got an ask of them and a requirement of their role.  I think if you are not doing it then you need to make sure that you don’t lose sight and that you know who you are going to to give you that information, to make sure. 

In organisations, we talk about ward to board communication – it’s that same piece.  What does that really mean in an authentic way, so that if you’re sat there representing or leading on behalf of an organisation or on behalf of people that you…

[FADES OUT]

- 0:32:24 - MUSIC PLAYS -

H - 0:32:27
We finished off talking about the importance of diversity, because SLTs are becoming more specialised and working in more areas in education, more areas in criminal justice and health.  We need the profession to look more like the UK as a whole.  So obviously that means a lot more men and more people from black and ethnic minority communities. And this is something that we’re going to have a look at in more detail in a future podcast.  

For our next podcast, we were supposed to be in Stirling for a conference with a number of SLTs from Northern Ireland. Unfortunately, that’s been cancelled because of the COVID-19 pandemic.  So we are busy restructuring our podcast schedule and finding workarounds where we can, while still practising social distancing. 

To everyone in the SLT community, stay safe, and particularly for our colleagues in the NHS, our thoughts are with you and we wish you the very best in these difficult circumstances for our healthcare service. 

Until next time.  

- 0:33:20 - MUSIC PLAYS -

- 0:33:38 - END OF TRANSCRIPT -