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Date: Monday 20 March 2023

Time: 17:30 - 18:30

Location: The Curve Lecture Theatre (Hunter Wing, Level 0), View map

The Permeable Practitioner: Navigating uncertainty in professional practice

Presenter: Professor Deborah Harding.

About this lecture

Professor Harding outlines how her practice career combined with her academic interests to prompt her PhD studies in which she identified a cluster of behaviours and characteristics that are helpful in navigating the inevitable uncertainty which accompanies professional practice. She describes how these ideas are being applied to support aspects of NHS workforce transformation and highlight the essential but sometimes neglected importance of supervision for the whole healthcare workforce as the cornerstone of professional and public safety.

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About Professor Harding

Deborah qualified as a speech and language therapist from the University of Sheffield in 1990. She specialised in speech and language problems for adults with neurological conditions working from 1992 to 1996 at Atkinson Morleys Hospital and the Wolfson Medical Rehabilitation Centre, then on Copse Hill, Wimbledon. She gained an MSc in Cognitive Neuropsychology from Birkbeck College, University of London in 1993.

After relocating to Kent in 1996, Deborah was seconded to manage regional inpatient neurorehabilitation services. Over the next 12 years, she developed a leadership portfolio culminating in her appointment to Associate Director for Rehabilitation Services with responsibility for a diverse range of clinical provisions including inpatient rehabilitation, wheelchairs, community equipment, neuropsychiatric, and amputee services. In 2008, Deborah joined the Kingston and St George’s Faculty of Health and Social Care, School of Physiotherapy as a senior lecturer for the MSc Rehabilitation, leading modules in Policy and Quality Improvement. Her clinical, leadership, and academic experiences prompted her research interest in supervision for health professions, and her PhD was awarded from St George’s University of London in 2019.

Deborah has led work with NHS England, NHS Improvement, and Health Education England where she has provided academic leadership for allied health professions leadership and for supervision in multi-professional advanced practice. Deborah combines her post at St George’s, University of London with a role as a subject matter expert in multi-professional supervision for both allied health and advanced practice national programmes at Health Education England. 

About our Inaugural Lectures

St George's newly arrived or promoted professors are invited to give an Inaugural Lecture to mark this milestone in their academic careers.

Professors use the opportunity to introduce themselves, update colleagues on current and future research plans and share their research with wider audiences. It is also a chance to celebrate the support from friends and family, and from colleagues, mentors, and collaborators past and present.

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