Telehealth for you
You can do it!
When delivering online assessments and telehealth, you can use your existing skill set as a clinician to deliver care and ensure people feel safe.
You may need to make some adjustments. Advice on communicating with people online and how to build and maintain therapeutic relationships is available in the how to guides 🔗 section of this toolkit.
To extend your knowledge and skills on using online assessment, you can access the online assessment training module. 🔗
Professional requirements
As a healthcare professional, you are required to have basic digital skills for work related tasks. The NHS 10-year plan (2025-2035) 📄 aims to utilise digital technology to improve patient care.
The Health and Care Professionals Council (HCPC) advise that registrants must use digital tools where appropriate or required for their practice, with a requirement to change your practice with new developments and technologies.
Health Education England (now part of the Department of Health and Social Care) created competencies to guide healthcare professionals to develop their digital skills. You can find more information on this initiative:
- HEE digital competency framework for UK allied health professionals 📄
- HEE Digital Competencies (Speech and language therapy) 📄
For guidance specific to speech and language therapists in the UK, The Royal College of Speech and Language Therapists provide detailed information on how to use telehealth in your practice. You can find the guidance here. 🌐
More information about implementing telehealth in your service can be found here. 🔗