Podiatrist at Swansea Bay University Health Board

The job at Swansea Bay University Health Board

Podiatrists diagnose and treat conditions of the foot, ankle and lower limb. Routine work includes assessing gait and biomechanics, debriding corns, calluses and ulcers, managing nail pathology, prescribing and fitting orthoses, taking wound swabs and giving local anaesthesia for nail surgery. A large part of NHS podiatry is high-risk foot care: screening and protecting the feet of people with diabetes, peripheral arterial disease and rheumatoid arthritis to prevent infection, ulceration and amputation. Many podiatrists also run independent practices. People of all ages with foot and lower limb problems, particularly those living with diabetes, circulatory or neurological disease and arthritis, children with walking or lower limb pain, and athletes and dancers.

At a health board such as Swansea Bay University Health Board, that work means a caseload that can span the whole pathway — acute wards, outpatient clinics and community teams — without changing employer, because the board is responsible for all NHS care in its area. Boards often run broad rotations across acute and community services, and specialising later rarely means leaving the organisation. Across the profession as a whole, podiatrists work in settings including NHS community clinic, NHS acute trust, diabetic foot clinic, rheumatology service and trauma and orthopaedics — an organisation of this type will run some of those services and not others, which is why two posts with the same job title in the same city can be very different jobs.

Pay is not an employer decision. Agenda for Change is negotiated nationally and set separately in each of the four nations, so Swansea Bay University Health Board pays band 5 exactly what every other NHS employer in Wales pays it: £32,557 at the bottom of the band on the 2026/27 scale. For context, median full-time pay across all occupations in Wales was £35,796 in 2025. What genuinely differs between two employers is the caseload, how rotations are structured, how much protected time you get for supervision and continuing professional development, how much band 6 progression is built into the establishment, and how far you travel between sites. Those are the questions worth asking at interview.

This page states no figure specific to Swansea Bay University Health Board because none is published in the open data. When the workforce and staff survey feeds include this organisation, the establishment size, the response rate and the theme scores will appear above.