Journal of Multidisciplinary Healthcare

Building a Sustainable Allied Health Workforce: Recruitment, Retention, and Resilience

The Allied Health Professions (AHPs) provide specialist emergency, diagnostic, treatment, and rehabilitative services that help people and whole communities from birth to end of life. AHPs make up a large proportion of the international health workforce, yet their vital contribution is too often marginalized in a public discourse that tends to refer only to "doctors and nurses." As a result, the focus on prevention and rehabilitation is also less well understood by patients and the public who focus on hospital-based, acute medical care. Further research is needed to inform policy and practice in sustaining the whole AHP workforce including assistant practitioners and support staff.

As the demand for Allied Health Services continues to grow there is a need to understand how best to build and maintain the Allied Health workforce, including non-traditional routes into the professions, diversification of educational options and challenging conceptions of siloed and stressful roles that lead to poor retention. There are multiple challenges across different communities and contexts including rural and coastal and urban deprived places, and evidence is needed to support planning, decision-making and investment in new roles and ways of working.

This Article Collection will explore the sustainability of the Allied Health workforce, with topics including retention, routes into the Allied Health Professions, burnout and other mental health difficulties facing the Allied Health workforce. The impact of workforce shortages, strategies for improving recruitment and diversity, the role of leadership and professional development in building resilience, and innovations in service delivery, including the integration of digital health and interprofessional collaborations are relevant. This Collection aims to gather robust AHP-specific research that evidences the issues facing the sustainability of the AHP workforce, and the outcomes of local, national, and international workforce innovations.

Specialties within the Allied Health Professions include:

• Art therapists
• Dietitians
• Dramatherapists
• Music therapists
• Occupational therapists
• Operating department practitioners
• Orthoptists
• Osteopaths
• Paramedics
• Physiotherapists
• Podiatrists
• Prosthetists and orthotists
• Radiographers
• Speech and language therapists

We welcome original articles, reviews, perspectives, and commentaries.

Submission Instructions:

Please submit your manuscript through the Dovepress website. During submission, enter the promo code 00451 for a 10% discount off the Article Processing Charge and to indicate that your submission should be included in this Article Collection.

All manuscripts submitted to this Article Collection will undergo full peer-review; Guest Advisors will not be handling submitted articles. Please review the journal’s aims and scope and author submission instructions prior to submission. Standard Article Publishing Charges apply.

The manuscript submission deadline is 1 July 2026.

If you have any questions about this Article Collection, please contact Krista Thom at [email protected].

Dr. Sarah Etty is a research fellow at Sheffield Hallam University, where she has developed a keen interest in workforce research, after beginning her research career in psychology. Her most recent focus has been on the support workforce within diagnostic imaging, and also more broadly across all of Allied Health. Dr. Etty's research continues to centre around the entire workforce employed with the Allied Health Professions.

Prof. Sally Fowler Davis is a leading academic in health services research and organisational improvement, currently serving as Professor of Allied Health at Anglia Ruskin University (ARU) and Director of ARU’s Health and Care Research Centre. She also holds a part-time secondment with the NHS, focusing on clinical academic development and research in practice settings. Her research interests include workforce sustainability in rural, coastal, and deprived communities, particularly in the context of organisational austerity and climate change. Prof. Fowler Davis is actively involved in public health leadership education across Europe and serves as a trustee for Re-engage, a charity dedicated to supporting older adults.

Disclosure Statement: Both Dr. Etty and Prof. Fowler Davis are currently working on a large-scale 5-year NIHR funded project on the Allied Health Professions workforce (NIHR160536).