Health Foundation leadership award holders Isabel Skypala and Stephen Till have won the Joint working between allied health professionals and healthcare scientists award at the UK Awards for Allied Health Professionals and Healthcare Scientists.
The awards were designed to champion innovation in the health service. Isabel (Director of Rehabilitation and Therapies) and Stephen (Clinician Scientist Fellow) were awarded for their innovative work in setting up a food allergy clinic for adults at Royal Brompton and Harefield NHS Trust.
The judges felt that creating this unified service for adults brought great benefit to patients, giving them everything they needed in one clinic. Patients with complex food allergies now see a dietician and doctor at the same time. This process enables the patients to receive diagnostic skin testing there and then, as well as a comprehensive assessment and treatment plan for all of their allergic problems, often in a single visit. In addition, in close collaboration with the biochemistry team, the clinic now has access to cutting edge tests employing recombinant food allergens to investigate more complex cases.
Isabel completed the Health Foundation’s Leading Practice through Research scheme and Stephen is a Health Foundation Clinician Scientist Fellow. Martin Marshall, Director of Clinical Quality at the Health Foundation said: ‘We congratulate Isabel and Stephen for their excellent work in establishing the food allergy clinic, and for winning the award. It’s terrific to see holders of different Health Foundation leadership fellowships working together on such an innovative project.’
The awards were run by Chamberlain Dunn and were sponsored by NHS Employers and the Department of Health among others. Other award categories included Innovation in patient care or clinical services, Promoting healthcare science and Rethinking the patient care pathway. On the inaugural year of the awards, Jan Laidlow, NHS Connecting for Health's national clinical lead for allied health professionals said the organisers received ‘many, many more entries than we’d expected’.