Julian believes that…..there should be more recognition

I have just heard someone moaning about government cutbacks on this morning's news. No change there then. But this news was that the national careers guidance team is being closed down. And not replaced. Just as I was about to get in touch with them!

I wanted to point out what an excellent industry we work in. Call it Healthcare Equipment, Assistive Technology (AT) or whatever – it is a good place to be. Growth market, and broadly rewarding. Interesting, and socially beneficial.

Whether you're part of a specifying team, assessing someone or somewhere for kit. Or you're installing that kit. Or you're maintaining or repairing that kit; you are part of a 20,000 strong group - of WHAT? What collective noun describes the people (us) who do all that?

RECOGNITION.....

We can't call ourselves "professionals”, because the nurse/therapist etc have that spoken for, but we are "practitioners”. People engaged in the practice of an occupation (see dictionary). Practical people.

And we deserve to be recognised – as a group. We are as crucial to the safe, independent living of vulnerable people as the medical professionals are. That's why I feel it's important that those advising youngsters on a good career choice should talk about the AT sector. With relish and enthusiasm.

And if we all get on and join (for 16p a day) and support the ATP Society (Assistive Technology Practitioners) there will be a proper, sector-wide voice. A society where we all get a say. And get something back.

What do you think? Isn't it time we had more recognition? Something to show the pride we really feel in doing something important.... that truly improves lives?

The ATP Society website is HERE

editor

Over the past goodness knows how many years many of us in the industry have been fighting the bad publicity generated by all those people who have emerged only to rip customers off, use totally inappropriate sales tactics and generally give the professionals working in the industry a bad name. More recently we have seen a continuous stream of businesses featured on programmes like Watchdog and a few weeks ago a couple of retailers went to jail.
There are thousands of excellent people working in the homecare and rehab sector and sometimes they don’t get the recognition that they deserve. It’s important to continue to emphasise what a good job the vast majority are doing.

17 August 2011

Alastair Gibbs

There is absolutely no doubt that many of the really professional people in this industry are not recognized for the sterling effort and hard work they put in to improving the lives of many. However, as Julian points out, there is a small financial crisis going on and whether we like it or not the commercial impacts of our actions have to be balanced.
Take a company of, say 30 employees. The basic BHTA membership would cost approx. £2000 for the company plus another £295 for each additional section joined. If we then add to that another 30 x £59.95 for each employee to join the ATP Society we are looking at a total in the region of over £4000. With typical industry returns at 4.6% (according to Plimsoll) before tax, then a company would need to generate nearly £87,000 of turnover to pay for this membership. It very quickly becomes a problem in the real commercial world where the lowest price is often the only consideration at point of purchase. To justify this type of expense an enormous amount of educating of the buyers is required to give them a reason to buy from a BHTA member or an ATP registered person. I suspect that even with that marketing mountain to climb there will still be those that will want to buy on best price and not best value.!!

18 August 2011

Angus Long

Alastair make a good point in that the trend to choose lowest price rather best value is one of the biggest challenges to UK based SMEs and it is having a domino effect throughout the industry.

Altering this trend and making the case for ‘best value’ over ‘cheapest price’ is not going to be quick and effortless. Certainly, the current economic climate and financial deficit is only going to make that task even harder.

The key word is ‘value’ and part of the initiative Julian advocates here of BHTA/ATP recognition is offering a differentiation and a reason to help create a degree of added value and so increase consumer confidence and reduce risk aversion on procurement decisions.

Just like any new and radical campaign is needs time, patience, tenacity, support and resolve to take effect.

My own view is that we should lobby hard for a greater recognition of things like BHTA and ATP membership with procurement managers.

There are a great many people and organisations questioning the governments drive to promote more competition and open up the NHS to the private sector etc without adequate commissioning, regulation and oversight management. Perhaps we could ask the Health Secretary himself at the BHTA conference on the 27th October how he sees this concern being addressed?

07 September 2011

Richard Handley

Whilst I agree with much of the above, I firmly believe the responsibility to do something about it sits with us as an industry.
At Care and Independence we have always invested in the training and professional development of our people, it increases their competency and generates customer trust in their expertise. That expertise is seen as part of the value we deliver and generates business that is definately not about being the lowest price.
All of our field sales team are registered AT Practitioners and our returns are somewhat better than the 4.6% average. Can that just be a happy coincidence?

09 September 2011

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