Hello, my name is Ewan Dick and I am the Associate Director for Allied Health Professionals (AHPs) & Therapy Services at Newcastle Hospitals.
My role has 2 main components
Professional leadership for 1150 AHPs across the Trust
Operational and clinical leadership and management for Therapy Services, a clinical support Directorate made up of six departments:
- Podiatry,
- Speech & Language Therapy,
- Dietetics,
- Psychology,
- Occupational Therapy
- Physiotherapy
It also includes a number of specialist services such as Talking Helps Newcastle, TIMS, Major Trauma Rehabilitation, Wheelchair Services and Loan Equipment.
I qualified as an Occupational Therapist (OT) in Newcastle and started my first job at the Freeman in 1993 and have worked in Newcastle ever since.
The first few years of my OT career were in rotational posts across Care of the Elderly at Walkergate Hospital and onto a number of Freeman wards covering orthopaedics and rheumatology, stroke and surgery.
After focusing on hospital-based OT I moved to help establish a new primary care funded multi-disciplinary team providing support, rehabilitation and care management for older people in their own homes. This was a fantastic learning experience and this innovative approach would shape the main focus of my career working with multi-disciplinary teams.
Passion for multi-professional integration
With the launch of the National Service Framework for Older People I moved into a service development role as Intermediate Care Coordinator for Newcastle working with the NHS and Local Authority teams and services to provide a network of pathways and support across the city.
Many of my roles have had a focus on integration, multi-disciplinary working and services that support patients across community and hospital pathways and this continues to be a key interest that I think helps deliver the quality and continuity of care that matters to our patients.
Over the following years I was lucky enough to manage some fantastic services including older people’s medicine and stroke rehabilitation wards and Day Hospital at Newcastle General Hospital, a range of community services. I then moved into Directorate Manager roles in Neurosciences (maternity cover and a great learning experience) and then in the Medicine Directorate.
Empowering colleagues through supportive leadership
Despite the challenges that come with a Directorate that is bigger than some hospitals, the Medicine Directorate team were incredible – leading and managing a huge and diverse range of services and it was the multi-disciplinary team component and focus on some of the most complex and vulnerable medical patients made it such a privilege to work with.
I was pleased to be seconded into the Associate Director for AHPs role in late 2019 and thrilled to land the role permanently in 2020 and it has been the best job I could imagine!
As well as returning to my roots with some of the colleagues that supported me at the start of my career, I am working in a role that enables me to support, develop and empower the next generations of unique AHP and therapy professionals.
Every day is different – from the operational challenges and innovation that comes from nearly 850 staff across Therapy Services, working with children and young people, in the community, delivering specialist and complex acute hospital care, supporting mental health & wellbeing through to looking at our longer-term strategy to support and develop the workforce of nearly 1200 AHPs across the Trust.
Responsibilities
- Clinical and managerial responsibility for 850 staff across 6 departments and several specialist services as part of the Therapy Services
- Chief AHP for the Trust with professional leadership responsibility for 1150 Allied Health Professionals
