AHP return to practice supervisor: Nicole shares her insights to a rewarding role

What is an AHP return to practice supervisor?

AHP returnees bring with them a wealth of skills and experiences. Supervisors help support returnees while they update their knowledge and skills so that they can practice safely and effectively.

When the period of supervised practice ends, the returnee can apply to re-register with the Health and Care Professions Council. Once the re-registration process is complete, the supervisor can direct the returnee to local vacancies.

Find out more about the AHP return to practice process.

Supervised practice

When Nicole was a podiatry student, she enjoyed the learning and teaching style of practice placements. Nicole wanted to make sure future students benefited from these placements in the way she had.

Nicole says, "I think it’s important to offer supervised practice to returnees because they're getting real-life experience. They get the opportunity to apply their theoretical learning in practice, which is a really rich learning experience."

Preparing to become a practice supervisor

Nicole decided to become a practice supervisor to help podiatrists who want to return to their AHP careers. She prepared for providing supervised practice by completing the online module “Becoming a Practice Educator” from NHS Education for Scotland. It helped her think about the types of learners she could be supporting and the questions she'd want to ask them.

Facilitating supervised practice

Nicole says that it’s a really different experience working with return to practice podiatrists as opposed to podiatrist students. The returnees have already graduated with their Podiatrist degree. They’ve also got lots of prior learning and life experience.

In her current role, Nicole's own prior learning and podiatry experience helped her when supporting the returnees. It helped her frame questions and provide support in an appropriate way so that the returnees had a great learning experience.

Nicole shares that during supervised practice, managers provided lots of support. The returnees were also given enough time in between patient sessions to go over tutorials. She explains, "We would talk about what went well and what didn’t go well. We also discussed making changes to the things that didn’t go so well. Was it a gap in knowledge? Was it confidence? Was it a skill we had to focus on in terms of assessments or treatment?"

A rewarding experience

Nicole has supported 3 podiatrists in returning to practice. She says, "What I enjoyed about being a return to practice supervisor was supporting the returnee's learning journey, their re-registration with the HCPC, and finding employment in the NHS.