In this episode of The Martina Tierney Podcast, Martina speaks with Michelle Tennyson, Chief Allied Health Professions Officer for Northern Ireland, about leadership, improvement and the enormous potential of Allied Health Professionals to shape the future of health and social care.

Michelle represents 14 Allied Health Professions and shares her ambition to ensure their skills, talents and ability to improve patient outcomes are fully understood and utilised across the healthcare system.

After experiencing the Lean culture at Seating Matters firsthand, Michelle discusses why she came to see Lean Made Simple as much more than a methodology — but as a way of creating culture change.

Together, Martina and Michelle explore creating safe environments where people can identify problems without blame, making improvement everybody’s business, protecting patients’ function and moving care closer to where people live.

Michelle also shares a powerful story from her own clinical career that changed the way she thought about patient care — reminding us that behind every condition is a person, and sometimes what matters most isn’t the clinical problem in front of us.

An inspiring conversation about Allied Health Professionals, compassionate care, leadership and putting people at the heart of improvement.