Student voices: Charlotte
Charlotte Tucker
I am a Physiotherapist with over 20 years' experience of working with older people predominantly in a community setting. My driving ambition is to have a positive impact on the quality of older people's care, and as such I have championed best practice in older people’s physiotherapy as an AGILE (the Professional Network of Physiotherapists working with older people) member and regional representative, organising and presenting at national conferences and contributing to national audit/consultations.
My current role focuses on quality of care, staff development and enhancing service delivery within an integrated (multidisciplinary) community team. My previous roles have included operational management and working as Rapid Response Practitioner in an admission avoidance service. The latter role enabled me to develop advanced assessment and clinical reasoning skills, gain a much better understanding of nursing practice, and appreciate the significant role that AHP’s have to play in Advanced Practice.
Why did you apply for the Fellowship?
I applied for the Fellowship as it offers the exiting opportunity to develop clinical knowledge in relation to older people's care alongside leadership skills, with a specific focus on quality improvement.
In recent years I have been particularly interested in leadership and the impact that I can have on service delivery through quality improvement and service development. With some recent leadership success and having become a ’Listening into Action’ champion for my Trust, I'd like to go further in supporting staff led change and really make a difference.
How will this programme help you and your organisation?
The programme covers many hot topics and as such will benefit my knowledge base and skills which, through feedback, networking and training I can disseminate within the Trust. In the first module I will develop a greater knowledge in a variety of topical subjects and can take this back to the organisation; at a direct clinical level to improve practice and more widely, if there are areas for development. The second module then focuses on a quality improvement project which aims to improve access to timely Community Physiotherapy assessment. This will ensure that;
- Patients have faster access to Physiotherapy advice and sign posting
- We provide timely assessment and treatment for those that need it
- We meet our targets
- We improve staff satisfaction/morale
What are your future plans/aspirations?
My future plans are to continue championing best practice in older people’s healthcare, further develop my leadership skills and apply my learning from the Fellowship in other areas of quality improvement and service development in order to really make a difference.
July 2017