Evaluation of Strategic Interventions in Health Education Disciplines Programme


Client: Office for Students

The Office for Students funds the £3m Strategic Interventions in Health Education Disciplines (SIHED) programme to support student awareness of, and success on, four small and vulnerable allied health disciplines. The programme focuses on therapeutic radiography, prosthetics and orthotics, podiatry, and orthoptics in the first instance, and on raising understanding and awareness of allied health professions more broadly.

Programme interventions include a marketing and communications campaign, outreach officers engaging with schools and colleges and upskilling alumini and professionals to become ambassadors for their profession, capturing student insights and understanding student demand, and funding innovations from universities and colleges, with a view to identifying and sharing good practice.

The programme is designed to help raise awareness of small and vulnerable allied health professions, and is being delivered by a range of partners including the College of Podiatry, the Society of Radiographers, the British and Irish Orthoptic Society, the British Association of Prosthetists and Orthotists, and Universities and Colleges across England.

SQW was commissioned in September 2018 to provide a three-year evaluation of the impact of the interventions and programme as a whole, generating formative learning throughout. The evaluation has been commissioned to run alongside programme implementation, including the Office for Students’ campaign ‘I see the difference’.

SQW’s approach will include logic modelling, capturing monitoring data from providers, undertaking interviews, focus groups and developing case studies, with reports to the programme board and formative insights shared throughout.

For more information about the study or programme, please contact Lauren Roberts at SQW or Lee Smith at the Office for Students.