Such a busy few weeks ...

Hi Everyone :)

I'm sorry for neglecting this blog recently but I've had a very busy few weeks!

The dissertation was (finally) handed in on Thursday, and we went straight to the pub to celebrate! I am proud of the work I've done, and would like to think at at some point in the future I'll actually get the opportunity to discover just how "Occuaptional Therapists assess the return to work potential of individuals following traumatic brain injury"!

Plans have also been made for my next module at uni, using activity analysis techniques to evaluate the use of live interactive music concerts for those with dementia in care homes. I'll keep you all up to date with the progress after Christmas!

Whilst most of the busy-ness in my life has come from uni work, unfortunately my Nanna also passed away a couple of weeks ago, which gave me the opportunity to make the motorway my new best friend travelling between home and uni. As sad as this was, I would really like to take this opportunity to publically thank the healthcare staff involved; the commnity COPD nurses, the staff in A&E, and finally the ward staff who were so fantastic for those few days. My family flocked from around the country, and we are not a small family, but the staff on the ward were welcoming and never made us feel like we were intruding or in the way. The medical staff were so willing to talk to us, explaining procedures and the nursing staff included us in all situations. It was also touching to see how many of the staff were visibly upset when we left the hospital for the final time. I have taken these experiences as a personal best practice situation that I will always remember when I am qualified.

So, despite the sad circumstances, I have so many thank you's for the staff on Ward 2C of Whiston Hospital that I know are shared by all my family and our friends.

x

OTs in non-OT Jobs

Sparked from a twitter discussion last night ...

As a soon-to-be-qualified OT, I've recently started taking more of an interest in the jobs on offer. More and more Band 5 OT jobs are now asking for post-graduate experience in certain areas. Given that this post-graduate experience is difficult to find when no-one will offer you a job in the first place it is not surprising to see an increasing amount of qualified OTs in non-OT roles. Last night I learnt that this is also affecting other professions, such as social work. This issue was reflected in a recent uni task, where we had to find a job not advertised as an OT, but one where we felt we could use our OT skills. Whilst there were many jobs put there, such as "rehabilitation officers" and "vocational advisors" that specified a desirable degree in OT, there is a lot of opinion surrounding this topic and it lead to a bit of a discussion.

The main themes that came out of a quick chat on twitter last night were:

It distracts from our unique skills base. We (and I'm speaking from experience) put a hell of a lot of effort into getting a degree in OT and this should be recognised with a protected title.

In a way it is good, as it allows OT skills to be spread to more people in need of our services, and we will be educating more people about OT who may have previously not heard of us.

However, OTs often struggle to identify a professional identity and definition as it is, and by moving away from the title of Occupational Therapist this may confuse us, and our service users, even more!

Ultimately though, it is becoming a necessity. If I want a job when I graduate where I can use my knowledge and skill base that I have built up over the last three years, then I am going to have to look further than the traditional roles and protected titles.


This topic is in line to be discussed further in a future #OTalk, so I may be able to update you with more experiences and opinions then.

Many thanks to @Clissa89 , @OT_Expert and @Ermintrude2 for the original twitter discussion :)

OT Week Celebrations

Happy OT Week everyone :)

Hope you've had a great week sharing the vision of OT and generally spreading the word of such a fantastic professional (yeah ... so I might be a little biased).

Unfortunately, I have to say that my OT Week has not been spectacularly different. I had great plans, some were lived out, others weren't, but I've really enjoyed hearing what others have been up too.

One of my main plans was to increase OT awareness in the setting where I work as a support worker. I had plans with the OT there to create a noticeboard promoting the profession and to hold some sessions to further explain the role of OT in the particular setting. As with all good intentions, things didn't quite go to plan though. Workmen never installed the noticeboard we were planning to use, and a sickness bug knocked down staff and clients alike to leave us too short staffed to run sessions :( but the plans and resources are still there to be completed another time on another day, and hopefully it will only be the dates on the OT Week pens that don't match up!

However, Tuesday came around and presented us (on twitter) with #OTuesday in #OTweek featuring #OTalk, which was guaranteed to cheer me up! This weeks topic was how to use SM for CPD and provoked some interesting discussions. So here is my experience and opinion ...

I first began using social media (SM) professionally after rediscovering my twitter account, and a slow Saturday afternoon searching by interest. I began tweeting about my experiences as an OT student; lectures I'd just been too, articles I had just read, and calls for help with assignments! I then started my blog when I struggled to fit everything I had to say into 140 characters! My main outputs of SM are on twitter, participating formally in OTuesday, NHSSM and more recently, OTalk and OChat. I also use twitter for informal discussions with OT students from other universities, practicing OTs and academics (a personal highlight was a tweet from E Duncan!).

I get a lot of benefits from my use of SM, the main one being the opportunity to communicate with so many other people, each with their own interesting stories and viewpoints on current issues. It allows exposure to a wider range of opinions - and with NHSSM, not just from OT perspectives - which breeds constructive debates. Another benefit of using SM is the speed at which information in shared. Previously we talked of how journals bypassed text books in getting information out there, now with SM your news, findings, thoughts and experiences are spread to a waiting audience instantly! I also find SM is a nice fall back for those days when the work can get too much, as a gentle reminder of why OT is so fantastic, why we do it, and mostly importantly why we love it!

The role of OT with people with Eating Disorders

Hey :)

It's been a while since I updated this, I've been mad busy over the last few weeks. It's my own fault, I need to learn to say no to opportunties (!).

Anyway, since it's been a while I thought I'd start with a (relatively) easy post. A few weeks ago I went to a SHOUT event. SHOUT is a student led regional BAOT group and I would highly recommend checking them out on twitter and facebook! This month's event was entitled "The role of Occupational Therapy with People with Eating Disorders". I will confess that I had never shown any particular interest in ED before, but I was pleasantly surprised at how engaged I got in discussions.

One thing that I never knew before the event was that ED are classed as a Mental Health Condition. I knew about the background of mental health disorders to ED, resulting in the need for control, but had not thought about how they were classified. This put ED in a very different light for me. I have always maintained that I am more of a mental health OT, and suddenly ED was on my radar.

Whilst my local area has very good service provisions for those suffering from ED, there is still a lack of OT input into their therapeutic programmes and deliveries. One of the speakers had spent a role emerging placement with the ED team and she presented her experience. Many of the situations she came across and the methods used to deal with these were "bread and butter OT". There was nothing spectacularly different about helping people with ED. The emphasis was simply put on being there for them, listening to them and supporting them to change their life. Surely this sums up all OT interventions?

The talk certainly challenged many of my ideas and preconceptions about ED, both from a personal and professional level. It made me realise that our inherent OT skills ARE transferable and they should be used in so many more situations. It does not take a team of researchers to realise there is a role for OT, nor does it take an academic to implement changes. These are grass roots plans that can be put into action by any qualified or student OT.

If you have a small amount of time to spare

This is completely non-OT related, but it is a subject very close to my heart.

Please, if you have a few minutes to spare, watch this video ...

http://www.liverpoolfc.tv/video/interview/9935-steve-rotheram-speech-in-full

Justice For The 96 <3

Question time

I wouldn't consider myself a fan of BBC's Question Time, but as I do have a moderate interest in politics I tune in occasionally. Last night I switched it on (admittedly because at the time there was nothing else on!) and found myself getting very involved in the debates.

The main debate that caught my attention surrounded the NHS Reforms, and put Andrew Lansley right in the spotlight.

Whilst there were many points from all sides that can be praised and criticised, I just want to pull apart a few.

Firstly, and as far as I'm concerned the most important was the lack of recognition that there are more than just doctors and nurses working in the NHS. Obviously as an OT I feel very strongly about the (lack of) promotion and recognition of our skills and services in the public domain but there are many other Allied Health Professionals out there who face similar situations. If those who are ultimately in charge of all these reforms cannot acknowledge this breadth of sets of unique skills, what hope have we got??

Whilst I understand and respect the fact that we have to be more confident in our promotional skills, this change needs to be reflected and aided by government and media otherwise it will be pointless. I know that there are many OTs out there who champion their services and that BAOT/COT have been involved in a lot of the discussion stages of this current reform and the general public need to be aware of this. I recently heard awareness of OT referred to as "most people have never heard of us or what we do, but once someone has benefited from OT they will never forget the impact".

A second point that I found fascinating was the results of a word count in one of the versions of the white paper. I will admit that personally I have not been able to read the full document - I agree with the comments about it being 'unreadable' - however I find it a frightening thought that "competition" is being, formally and officially, put in front of "integration" and "cooperation". Surely this renders everything that I have been taught in all my inter professional modules about collaborative working and service user involvement, useless?

Whilst I find myself agreeing with some of the reasons behind the reform - more accountability, more patient involvement and relevant professionals involved in decision making - I definitely think that Lansley has gone about it in completely the wrong way, and not listened or taken note of the opinions of professionals, patients and the general public who disagree.

NHS and Social Media

Tonight I took part in my first NHS and Social Media (#NHSSM) discussion on twitter. I had seen the hashtag mentioned before but never known what it was for, and tonight I used my best multi tasking and conversation-following skills to try it out!

Tonight's discussion was around electronic patient records. I will have to admit that it got a bit too technical for me at some points, for example when discussing specific systems and programmes for electronic patient records but it was still fascinating! Once I got used to following the conversation (TweetDeck saved me!) it became a fantastic chance to see social media in action. Professionals from around the country, and quite possible the globe all came together to share their opinions and professional experience.

Some of the main points from tonight's discussion were:

• How secure can electronic records ever be?
• Can we restore public trust in the NHS and Electronic Records in general, enough to use electronic records as a standard?
• Would electronic records improve communication between different settings? e.g. community and inpatient, physical and mental health

Personally, I have only had experience of paper records, both in the NHS and in the Private Sector but I do fully agree that electronic records would mean more improved communication between services. I also think that having electronic records would encourage more individuals to check their own records, which in turn should reduce errors. As for the safety of electronic records, well I am definitely not technical enough to know that (!) but I think there does need to be a shift in the public opinion over electronic records, especially following recent media stories over lost information from both governments and businesses.

As this week was my first NHSSM I did not get actively involved, but I am thoroughy looking forward to next weeks discussion and hopefully I will be able to read fast enough to reply!

Heather

OT in the New NHS System

So last week we had a lecture in Uni with the topic "Current Issues". We ended up discussing lots of things about the politics of the NHS, the old system, the new system, where OT fits it and what we can do about it! It's had me thinking so I thought I'd try and get some of those thoughts down now.

First of all, with GPs now in charge of commissioning services, how many of them actually know what OT is, and what we can do? Even if they have heard of an OT in a specific area, how likely are they to know the vast spectrum that we can work in and help ease their patient numbers and costs (unfortunately now a bigger worry for many).

Cost cutting in the NHS nationally then led onto a subject a bit closer to heart, the funding of healthcare students. Currently tution fees are still being paid for those wishing to study for an AHP degree, and because of the funding coming straight from the Government, Universitys are currently tied into teaching what they are told to teach.

As OTs in general - and perhaps even more important for those like me who will qualify in the height of all these changes - we need to develop our marketing strategy skills. Many OTs who have already moved out of the NHS into private companies, voluntary organisations and social enterprises have already done this by choice, but soon we may have no choice. BAOT have already published guides to 'Influence Service Commissioners' which are available on their website to help OTs to develop their skills.

But our main question was ... shouldn't we be being taught all these skills anyway??

Welcome!

Hi :)
I'm Heather and I've just started the final year of my OT degree. I already tweet about OT so I thought I'd go to the next step and free myself of 140 characters!
Hopefully this will improve some of my reflective skills and give me a chance to share my learning and experiences over the next 12 months ...

Heather x