Simone Fox and Becky Hargreaves

Simone Fox and Becky Hargreaves: York Podiatry Ltd

Upskilling the team and adding business value

Simone's career journey has gone from ballet dancing to podiatry due to her interest in MSK and knowing the importance of good foot care when dancing. 

Simone embarked on her journey into the foot health team when she applied for a job at York Podiatry in 2019 as a receptionist. She has a naturally curious nature and was intrigued to find out what the role of the podiatrist was, whilst she was welcoming and rebooking patients. It didn’t take long before Simone offered to support the podiatrists with peri-clinical duties such as stock control and befriending patients before nail surgery. She had “always wanted a tunic” and after discussions with Becky, podiatrist and practice owner, she enrolled on the Royal College of Podiatry (RCPod) assistant practice training programme. Training up a podiatry assistant was a new business venture for Becky, but she took the advice and realised the potential of a support worker within her practice.

Simone wanted to explore her career options as her children became less dependent on her. She still required some flexibility in her working pattern so training and becoming a podiatry assistant was not something she thought she could do. She spoke with Becky and the podiatry team at York Podiatry Ltd and they found a way to balance the training, with work, so that it suited her. 

Simone and her podiatrist supervisor are now working their way through the two-year training programme and enjoying the process. The team at York Podiatry Ltd have embraced the in-house training and they have all gained some practice educator skills to support their professional portfolio. As Simone has gone through the programme, she has gained some of her clinical competencies. Therefore, under the delegation and supervision of a podiatrist, she has begun treating or supporting patients within many different types of clinical appointments. She has a regular nail and skin care clinic, assists in nail surgery, and supports the new patient clinics by screening for plantar foot pressures, using pressure plate analysis, and providing the results for the podiatrists to review. This is something that she enjoys very much as she can understand the risks associated with overloading bones, joints and soft tissue from her time in ballet dancing.

The whole podiatry team has seen the value in upskilling Simone to support their career, clinical duties, and patient management. The patients have said they feel valued by the level of service they receive and welcome the preventative screening measures that Simone conducts before the podiatry review. As a business, this model supports personalising care for the patients due to the variety of services that are provided by the team. This approach empowers them to make shared decisions about their care. Since Simone has been supporting the clinics Becky has seen an increase in patients visiting the clinic as they build on appointment capacity. This has led to an increase in the available budget for equipment, education, and training as well as general maintenance of the clinic.

Both Becky and Simone are pleased that they embarked on this journey together and hope to train another podiatry assistant in the future.

Watch as Becky talks about the benefits of having a podiatry assistant in her business model, and Simone reflects on the skills and attributes she has brought from her previous job to her new role as a podiatry assistant: