The allied health professions have gained legitimacy through the pursuit of research evidence and the standardisation of practice. Yet there remains very little analysis or understanding of these professions.
Adopting theory from the sociology of health professions, this unique text explores the sociological, economic, political and philosophical pressures that have shaped the professions. Drawing on case studies and examples from occupations including optometrists, occupational therapists and physiotherapists to emerging vocations, including pedorthists and allied health assistants, this book offers an innovative comparison of allied health professions in Australia and Britain.
By telling the story of their past, this original book prepares the allied health professions for a new and different future.
Health care support workers (HSWs) play a fundamental role in international health care systems, and yet they remain largely invisible. Despite this, the number of HSWs is growing fast as governments strive to combat illness and address social care issues in a world of finite resources.
This original collection analyses the global experience of HSWs in the UK, Japan, Australia, Brazil, Canada, Portugal, Sweden and The Netherlands. Leading academics examine issues including the interface of HSWs with the health professions, regulatory practice risks, employment challenges and the dilemmas of an ageing population. Crucial future policy recommendations are also made for a world becoming increasingly dependent on HSWs.
Introduction The book examines the role of support workers, particularly in their interface with the health professions. This disparate, but very large, group of workers is defined by providing face-to-face care and other support of a personal or confidential nature to service users in a variety of settings. However, crucially, they do not hold qualifications accredited by a professional association and are not typically formally regulated by a professional body ( Saks and Allsop 2007 ). The volume is original as there are no known books to date that
The health professions are in a constant state of growth and evolution, with new professions continuing to emerge, many in response to new techniques and technologies, and being included under the umbrella of allied health. This chapter explores the emergent allied health occupations, that is, those groups that have recently achieved a level of consistency of title and organisation to then pursue professionalism. Examples of occupations that have professionalised since the middle of the 20th century include exercise physiologists, rehabilitation counsellors
The largest recognised group of allied health professionals is comprised of the established state- and self-regulated professions. These professions have claimed clear philosophies and sometimes anatomical domains and scopes of practice that differentiate them from each other, and other emerging disciplines. This chapter draws on the examples of optometry and radiography, one of which was established prior to the advent of the era of medical dominance, and the other during it. It thus illustrates the way allied health professions responded to the challenge
The allied health professions, and indeed all contemporary Western professions, have been shaped by a set of distinct social forces and contexts that were a product of their formative era. The Industrial Revolution saw the rapid organisation of labour at a time when social class, British colonialism and paternalism were dominant themes in much of the Western world. For the professions, the consequences have included a highly organised, hierarchical and strongly gender-differentiated workforce. Social policies have evolved over the past half-century to try to
Introduction This chapter describes the way the health support workforce interfaces with allied health professions, first through an international perspective, and then with greater focus on the UK and Australian contexts. Allied health practitioners have been working with support workers since at least the mid-20th century ( Salvatori 2001 ), with evidence of formal training for occupational therapy assistants in the United States as early as the 1950s – while several professions saw a proliferation of assistants during the early 1970s in Canada and the UK
53 building research capacity in the allied health professions Caroline Pickstone, Susan Nancarrow, Jo Cooke, Wesley Vernon, Gail Mountain, Rosalie A. Boyce and Jackie Campbell This article discusses research capacity building and its relevance for health practitioners using allied health professionals (AHPs) as a case example. Allied health professionals is a term used to represent a diverse group of health workers, each with a discrete clinical focus, whose needs for research capacity building are likely to be similar to one another and to other medical
professions in the public eye has increased dramatically, the educational and training process for future professionals is fraught with unknowns during these multiple, overlapping societal-level issues. Public health and the health professions require a unique, interdisciplinary model for education across fields of study, as these areas prepare students for vastly different career paths and draw trainees from many academic backgrounds. These disciplines converge alongside the major issues of our time –​ the COVID-19 pandemic, social/​racial injustices and Black Lives Matter
There are significant variations in how healthcare systems and health professionals are regulated globally. One feature that they increasingly have in common is an emphasis on the value of including members of the public in quality assurance processes. While many argue that this will help better serve the public interest, others question how far the changing regulatory reform agenda is still dominated by medical interests.
Bringing together leading academics worldwide, this collection compares and critically examines the ways in which different countries are regulating healthcare in general, and health professions in particular, in the interest of users and the wider public. It is the first book in the Sociology of Health Professions series.
