It's national Occupational Therapy Week next week.

Here are Milly and Eleanor, two of our Occupational Therapists tell us about their jobs.

Milly "thoroughly enjoys her job" and Eleanor really likes her "diverse and varied"  clinical case load! Read below for their stories.

The Therapy department on the 2nd floor at CRH will be open to visitors on Thursday 9th November from 1pm -3pm for people to come and to learn about the role and see the facilities. Follow the green signs for the therapy department

A day in the life of Milly...pictured right

My name is Milly Townsend and I am a newly qualified Occupational Therapist. I have been working in the Medicine and Elderly Care team at CRH for two months now and this is my first job. This is a snapshot of what my day as an OT can involve:

My working day starts at 8.30am and after 15 minutes of reviewing the new referrals on the electronic caseload, our board meeting with the whole team starts at 8.45am. Our team consists of a physiotherapist, OT, assistant practitioners and therapy assistants. The board meeting identifies which professional a patient will need input from and is how each team member has their caseload assigned for the day.

After this, I'll spend some time gathering information about each patient so I can prioritise my caseload for the day.  Once I have done this, I will head to the wards which tends to be the 5’s as this is my ward bias within the team. We all have a ward bias as the staff on the ward have fedback to our team that it is nice to have consistency with the therapist who is present on each ward. However this is not always possible due to caseload pressures.

I will see each individual patient on my caseload throughout the day and may do a range of interventions dependant on their individual needs to ensure I am providing person centred care. This may involve gathering social history, functional transfer assessments, identifying equipment needs or practicing functional activities with patients. Each intervention will have a practical purpose that aims to assess and identify any needs the patient has that they may need support with on discharge e.g. washing and dressing. My aim as an OT working with an acute setting is to facilitate discharge however this may not always be home. We often refer onto onwards services including intermediate care and the community therapy team. These services can continue to have therapy input with patients which ensures that person is able to reach their full therapy potential. 

After seeing each patient, I will need to document  the intervention I have carried out and the therapy contact time I have had with each individual. I will use my analysis skills as an occupational therapist to formulate a therapy plan and make recommendations to facilitate discharge. I may also liaise with other professionals including social workers and the discharge coordinator to feedback my therapy analysis and recommendations to contribute to the discharge planning process.

I am thoroughly enjoying my first job as an occupational therapist working within the medicine and elderly care team and look forward to my future rotations within the Trust to build on my clinical experience and skills.

Here's from Eleanor: 

My name is Eleanor Speak. I have been employed as an Occupational Therapist at CHFT for the past nine years. During this time I have developed into the role of Band 6 Specialist OT. For the past five years I have specialised in Medicine and Elderly care and have had the opportunity to work at both hospitals.

The OT service provides interventions across the week and in my team we work between 8am and 6pm. We are a responsive service and our varied shift patterns are designed to meet the demands and changing needs of the service in the delivery of care to our patients.

The first priority of the day is to collect therapy referrals from EPR and triage dependant on their clinical need and stage in their inpatient therapy. Patients will be registered to our electronic caseload system and we allocate the patient to the clinician with the appropriate skill set to be able to meet the needs of the patient.

My clinical caseload is diverse and varied, which is something I really enjoy. One of my key responsibilities within the team is to deliver prompt and responsive therapy interventions to our most acute clinical areas eg A+E, AMU, SSU. This is an area where we assess our patient’s functional abilities in order to support their return home or direct their onward journey to appropriate facilities which could include Intermediate Care, Respite or Transitional bed.

As a Specialist OT, I lead in the OT provision for patients with more complex therapy needs, which could include managing their daily living skills following life changing illness or injury.

I am dual trained across Physical and Mental Health practice, this equips me to work effectively with patients who present with Mental Health problems and have issue around their mental capacity. This means my daily caseload can be varied I may be involved in a complex discharge from the elderly care wards which often involves the wider MDT and family members to assessing a patient in A&E to prevent an admission to the hospital.

As an OT I have a wide range of clinical skills, but as important are personal attributes such as compassion, flexibility, resilience and ability to cope in stressful situations.

Alongside my clinical role, I am actively involved in the development of the service and staff within my team. An example of this is the Frailty pilot which has recently started at CRH in partnership with our Community Division and Social Work colleagues. As a senior member of the team, I am regularly involved in audits regarding various aspects of the team and service delivery, which supports the ongoing developments of our team, to best meet the needs of the patients in our care.

The future of OT is very important to me in supporting the profession’s future. I am a Practice Educator, with our Royal College of Occupational Therapists and hold national accreditation as a practice educator. I regularly support students on placement, ensuring that they receive high quality placement experience and that they are adequately prepared for their future as an Occupational Therapist.