We encourage all occupational therapy practitioners working for the NHS in England to respond to a new consultation on the colour of Allied Health Professionals’ (AHPs) uniforms.
The National Healthcare Uniforms project seeks to establish standardised uniforms for staff including AHPs and AHP support workers employed within the NHS in England.
We surveyed our members about the project in February 2022 and you told us very clearly that professional identity must be a top priority for the uniform design.
For many members this was closely associated with the bottle-green colour currently worn by occupational therapists in most NHS Trusts in England.
We’ve listened to our members and worked with NHS colleagues to identify an approach that addresses the feedback received by RCOT and other AHP professional bodies.
We’re making progress towards a uniform design that meets our objective for members to retain their professional identity, while satisfying the key objectives of the uniform project:
- improving patient safety
- professional image
- value for money
- diversity
- sustainability
The proposed approach is that all AHPs wear a smart-scrub tunic top with the same base colour, but with a trim that identifies their individual profession. For occupational therapists this trim will be green. NHS Supply Chain have launched a new consultation asking AHPs to identify a preferred base colour for AHP tunics.
Under the current proposal, AHPs will be offered a choice of either blue or black trousers. This element of the uniform design is still being discussed but RCOT, alongside the British Dietetic Association, Society of Radiographers and British and Irish Orthoptic Society have flagged a number of concerns.
There are several reasons why we believe offering a choice of black and blue trousers would contradict the aims of the uniform project:
For our members, green trousers are a significant part of their professional identity. Losing this in order to satisfy the wider objectives of the uniform project is only a reasonable compromise if all AHP professions are treated equally and expected to make the same concessions.
This would mean all AHPs adopting a trouser colour with no pre-existing professional associations i.e. black.
- Including a colour choice that already has strong associations with one particular AHP profession undermines the professional identity and visibility of all AHPs and is likely to lead to misidentification.
- If one AHP profession is able choose a trouser colour reinforcing their unique professional identity, all AHP professions should have this option.
- The intention of the project is to create a standardised AHP uniform across the country. If some Trusts or professions choose to wear black trousers and some choose to wear blue, this isn’t standardised.
- In terms of patient safety and ease of professional identification, allowing local variation creates unnecessary confusion and inconsistency.
We’ll continue to raise these concerns with NHS and AHP colleagues working on the uniform project. We encourage all occupational therapy practitioners working in the NHS in England to respond to the current survey being delivered by NHS Supply Chain. The survey opened on Tuesday 3 January 2023 and will run until Tuesday 31 January 2023.
While the consultation only focuses on the base colour of AHP tunics, we encourage members to use the comments box within the survey to share additional feedback. Written responses, questions and feedback can also be shared via nationaluniforms@supplychain.nhs.uk.