England

This consultation launched by the Levelling Up, Housing and Communities Committee looked at what the Government can do to ensure disabled people have access to accessible and adaptable housing in England.

Members were asked to share their views on a new duty to improve disabled people’s access to communal areas of residential properties and how will this impact them and people requiring adaptations? This consultation regards the commencement and implementation of the remaining parts of section 36 of the Equality Act 2010. This legislation places a duty on landlords to make reasonable adjustments to the common parts of let residential premises when requested by a disabled person. ‘Common parts’ include outside areas, entrances, hallways, landings and stairwells.

Disabled people can already make such requests but there is currently no legal duty on the landlord to make reasonable adjustments to common parts. Before commencement, regulations will be needed to set out how the new arrangements will work. The government proposed that guidance would be drafted to help landlords and disabled people to understand their rights and obligations.

Link to consultation

July 2022

The Government launched a public consultation on proposed changes to the Mental Capacity Act (MCA) Code of Practice for England and Wales, which included guidance on the new Liberty Protection Safeguards (LPS) system. The consultation document and the Code of Practice were also be published in Welsh. This was a joint consultation published by DHSC, Ministry of Justice, Department for Education and Welsh Government.

Link to consultation documents: https://www.gov.uk/government/consultations/changes-to-the-mca-code-of-practice-andimplementation-of-the-lps

July 2022

The Department of Health and Social Care (DHSC) and the Ministry of Justice (MoJ) consulted on the proposed changes to the Mental Capacity Act 2005 (MCA) Code of Practice, which includes guidance on the new Liberty Protection Safeguards (LPS) system. This consultation also sought views on the LPS regulations, which will underpin the new system.

The MCA applies in England and Wales, but some aspects of its application are devolved in Wales. The Welsh Government therefore informed this consultation.

The LPS will apply to people over the age of 16, and the Department for Education (DfE) has been involved in the development of this new system.

The government consulted on a number of documents:

• The Code of Practice
• LPS regulations
• LPS implementation products

Link to the consultation: https://www.gov.uk/government/consultations/changes-to-the-mca-code-of-practice-and-implementation-of-the-lps

July 2022

The Department of Health and Social Care (DHSC) and the Ministry of Justice (MoJ) consulted on the proposed changes to the Mental Capacity Act 2005 (MCA) Code of Practice, which includes guidance on the new Liberty Protection Safeguards (LPS) system. This consultation also sought views on the LPS regulations, which will underpin the new system.

The MCA applies in England and Wales, but some aspects of its application are devolved in Wales. The Welsh Government therefore informed this consultation.

The LPS will apply to people over the age of 16, and the Department for Education (DfE) has been involved in the development of this new system.

The government consulted on a number of documents:

• The Code of Practice
• LPS regulations
• LPS implementation products

Link to the consultation: https://www.gov.uk/government/consultations/changes-to-the-mca-code-of-practice-and-implementation-of-the-lps

July 2022

The government is committed to improving mental health and wellbeing outcomes, particularly for people who experience worse outcomes than the general population. This is a key part of their commitment to ‘level up’, and address unequal outcomes and life chances across the country.

The government has committed to develop a new cross-government, 10-year plan for mental health and wellbeing for England to support this objective. They want to ensure their new plan responds to the public’s priorities and set out what we can all do as a whole society to drive better outcomes. We all have mental health, and all have a part to play in changing things for the better.

A discussion paper and call for evidence to ask the public a range of questions to help develop the new plan was launched.

This discussion paper asked people:

• how can we all promote positive mental wellbeing? (chapter 1)
• how can we all prevent the onset of mental ill-health? (chapter 2)
• how can we all intervene earlier when people need support with their mental health? (chapter 3)
• how can we improve the quality and effectiveness of treatment for mental health conditions? (chapter 4)
• how can we all support people living with mental health conditions to live well? (chapter 5)
• how can we all improve support for people in crisis? (chapter 6)

This discussion paper was published by the Department of Health and Social Care, and has been informed by conversations with stakeholders, people with lived experience and government departments.

Link to consultation: Mental health and wellbeing plan: discussion paper and call for evidence - GOV.UK (www.gov.uk)

The government has published a green paper on the future of the special educational needs and disabilities (SEND) and alternative provision (AP) system and undertakook a public consultation on the green paper’s proposals.

The government is committed to improving outcomes for children and young people with SEND and those in alternative provision. They want to work with children, young people, parents, carers and those who advocate and work with them, as well as local and national system leaders, to achieve this ambition.

February 2022

This consultation closed on 27th February. Thank you to everyone who completed the survey. You will find a summary of the survey responses below, as well as a letter sent to NHS England & Improvement and NHS Supply Chain by the AHP Federation, of which RCOT is a member.

What was the consultation about:  Members were asked to comment on revised proposals for a new, single-colourway Allied Health Professions uniform for NHS staff in England.
NHS England and Improvement and NHS Supply Chain sought support from RCOT for a new, standardised AHP uniform, as part of an ongoing national uniform project. The outcome of the project will affect all occupational therapists and occupational therapy support workers employed by the NHS in England, in settings where a uniform is worn. 

Members were asked to tell us whether they felt the proposed design and colour choices would meet the needs of occupational therapy practitioners, colleagues, patients and the public and whether RCOT should support the proposal that has been put forward.

Background to the national uniform project
During 2020 and 2021 NHS Supply Chain consulted NHS staff on a proposal to introduce a nationally standardised uniform across the NHS in England. AHPs, including RCOT members, responded to the staff-wide survey, as well as a separate survey specifically for AHPs. Details of the consultation process and results can be found here. Our response to the consultation can be found here. 

We and other AHP professional bodies have continued to participate in discussions with NHS Supply Chain, to ensure that the views, priorities and preferences of occupational therapists and AHP colleagues are addressed in the design of the new uniform. 

Ensuring a strong professional identity
RCOT, in collaboration with UNISON, surveyed our members in May 2021 to seek additional comments on the uniform proposals. A strong priority for respondents was that uniforms must help to reinforce a clear professional identity. Two thirds of respondents felt that having different coloured uniforms for each of the allied health professions was the most effective way of enabling patients, visitors and colleagues to distinguish between the different professions. 

Addressing sustainability 
Increasing sustainability and reducing procurement costs are key aims of the uniform project. Sustainability is a priority across the NHS, with NHS England publishing a commitment to Delivering a Net Zero NHS. A Greener AHP Hub has also been launched to support AHPs to improve their own environmental sustainability.
We recognise the important role that occupational therapists have in addressing sustainability through your professional activities. You can read more about this here.

Single colourway vs individual colours – considering the pros and cons

NHS Supply Chain have produced an options appraisal document in response to feedback from RCOT and other AHP professional bodies regarding the proposed design and colour of AHP uniforms. The appraisal examines the benefits and drawbacks of having different coloured uniforms for each individual allied health profession, in comparison with one colourway option to be worn by all allied health professionals. It considers key factors of: 

• Patient and visitor safety
• Professional image and suitability
• Equality, diversity and inclusion
• Value for money
• Sustainability

December 2021

The Health and Social Care Committee of the UK Parliament launched an inquiry to explore the future of NHS general practice examining the key challenges facing general practice over the next five years.

Link to consultation

September 2021

The Long-Term Strategic Framework for Health and Social Care Workforce Planning will review, renew and update HEE’s Framework 15 published in 2014, to help ensure they have the right numbers, skills, values and behaviours to deliver world leading clinical services and continued high standards of patient care.

For the first time ever, the framework will also include regulated professionals working in social care, like nurses and occupational therapists

The work will look at the key drivers of workforce demand and supply over the longer term and will set out how they may impact upon the required shape of the future workforce, to help identify the main strategic choices.

HEE is leading this programme of work in close collaboration with NHS England and NHS Improvement, Department of Health and Social Care, Skills for Care and key stakeholders across the health and social care sectors.

HEE undertook a Call for Evidence to identify the factors that may have the greatest impact on demand for the health and social care sector over the next fifteen years, and what this means for the workforce supply, to support patients and the population of the future.

More detail here; https://www.hee.nhs.uk/our-work/long-term-strategic-framework-health-social-care-workforce-planning

July 2021

Following the Fire Safety Consultation, which ran from 20 July to 12 October 2020, the Home Office sought views on new proposals to implement the Grenfell Tower Inquiry Phase 1 recommendations on Personal Emergency Evacuation Plans in high-rise residential buildings.

The government is determined to continue to learn the lessons from the Grenfell Tower fire to ensure that such a tragedy can never happen again.  It is important to get this right and ensure the voice of residents and those likely to be affected by the proposals are heard.

This new consultation contained proposals to implement the Grenfell Tower Inquiry Phase 1 Report recommendations on Personal Emergency Evacuation Plans, also known as PEEPs, that require a change in law to place new requirements on owners or managers of multi-occupied high-rise residential buildings.  This consultation supported delivery of two of the Grenfell Tower Inquiry Phase 1 recommendations and was part of the government’s package of reforms to improve building and fire safety in all regulated premises where people live, stay or work.

The RCOT Specialist Section – Housing provided a response to this consultation. 

Link to consultation

This consultation seeks the views of stakeholders on a draft framework for AHP Support Worker Competency, Education and Career Development. 

The consultation is structured with questions around:  

• aims and clarity of the framework 
• improvements to the different domains of the framework, and 
• implementation of the framework. 

The Framework will allow employers, networks, integrated care systems (ICSs) and services effectively plan, develop, and deploy their AHP support workforce. It provides guidance on training, education and competencies for AHP support workers employed in NHS services and NHS funded services and demonstrates a clear pathway for recruitment and progression, with accompanying common and transferrable skills across eight domains. 

Link to consultation

April 2021

The Mental Health Act White Paper (England and Wales) was out for consultation and members were invited to give their views on changes to the Mental Health Act to help put patients at the centre of decisions about their own care and ensure everyone is treated equally.
In 2017 the government asked for an independent review of the Mental Health Act 1983 (MHA), to look at how it is used and to suggest ways to improve it.  The review’s final report said that the MHA does not always work as well as it should for patients, their families and their carers.  The government is now proposing a wide range of changes to rebalance the MHA.
The changes are based on 4 principles that have been developed with people with lived experience of the MHA.

They are:

• choice and autonomy – ensuring service users’ views and choices are respected
• least restriction – ensuring the MHA’s powers are used in the least restrictive way
• therapeutic benefit – ensuring patients are supported to get better, so they can be discharged from the MHA
• the person as an individual – ensuring patients are viewed and treated as individuals

The document includes specific chapters for the criminal justice system, people with learning disabilities and autistic people, children and young people and experiences of people from BAME backgrounds.

May 2021 

The National Healthcare Uniform Project is a proposal put forward by NHS Supply Chain: Hotel Services to introduce a nationally standardised uniform across the NHS in England.  A national uniform will offer a strong national identity and utilise the buying power of the NHS by delivering cost savings. 

Originally launched in the summer of 2019, the project was paused during 2020 due to more important priorities relating to the pandemic.  

NHS Supply Chain wanted to hear AHP voices and understand their requirements for a uniform that is fit for purpose, practical and comfortable to wear. 

Link to consultation

March 2021

HEE commissioned Skills for Health to lead the development of Advanced Practice credentials, providing a consistent standard for multi professional advanced level practice in six specialties:

• Primary Care Core Framework
• Primary Care Dietetics
• Primary Care Occupational Therapy
• Community Rehabilitation
• Pelvic Health
• Community exercise-based approaches for people living with long-term conditions

To create transferable, recognisable ongoing Advanced Practice education and training, there is a need to create, for each specialty, a standardised framework of learning outcomes and assessment methods, to be delivered by education providers working in partnership with service. Often, this will be as part of approved level 7 (Master’s level) learning but this may not be the only model of learning. Each ‘credential’ articulates learning an individual is required to successfully complete in order to be recognised as an Advanced Practitioner in the speciality and beyond. 

Based on the consultation process, a final draft of each credential will be developed, formatted to be consistent with the HEE ‘house style’ and linked to the emerging supervision, assessment, portfolio and educational requirements.

The expectation is for the credentials to be launched in late Spring 2021.  This timescale will be kept under review in light of the Covid 19 restrictions in order to ensure clinicians and other stakeholders are given time and opportunity to engage fully in the development process.

RCOT provided responses on the following:

1. Advanced Practice Primary Care Occupational Therapy (and core clinical pillar)
2. Advanced Practice Primary Care core for Education, Leadership and Management 
3. Advanced Practice Community Rehabilitation

The link to consultations click here

The All-Party Parliamentary Group for SEND ran an inquiry into the impact that Covid-19 has had on children and young people with SEND during transition within educational establishments. RCOT submitted evidence highlighting the role, challenges and innovative approaches adopted by occupational therapists who have supported young people with SEND as they transition from one class or setting to another during these unusual times. The focus was on England but responses from all four nations were welcome.

Read the APPG inquiry terms of reference here.

Members were asked to share their thoughts or examples in relation to the following:

What particular challenges do you think young people with SEND and their families have faced in relation to transitions during the pandemic?

• Consider impact on their mental/physical health, learning and development
• Consider impact in relation to their social and emotional well-being within the community
   
• What have you done to support transitions for young people with SEND?
• What have been the barriers?
• What needs to be put in place to prevent the same problems from happening again in the future?

October 2020

The Government launched the Planning for the Future Consultation.  The proposals applied to England only and the purpose of the consultation was to:

seek any views on each part of a package of proposals for reform of the planning system in England to streamline and modernise the planning process, improve outcomes on design and sustainability, reform developer contributions and ensure more land is available for development where it is needed.

The consultation document posed 26 questions for consideration, not all of which were relevant to the work of occupational therapists.  There is a useful overview of the consultation available from the Housing LI

October 2020

The Department for Education sought views on a revised version of the School Admissions Code to support vulnerable children.   The revised code sought to clarify and improve the school admissions process where children are admitted to school in-year, so outside of the normal admissions round. The revised code will also provide additional information and details that will support admission authorities in discharging their duties effectively.

These changes are primarily intended to support the most vulnerable children. We are not seeking views on wider changes to the admissions system and other elements of the code at this stage.

July 2020

The Personalised Care Institute is a virtual organisation, accountable for setting standards for evidence-based training, underpinned by a robust quality assurance and accreditation framework.  The NHS Long Term Plan outlined the NHS’s aim to ensure that 2.5 million people are given personalised care by 2024. The Personalised Care Institute will support the professional development of at least 75,000 clinicians in four, evidence-based components of personalised care by 2023/24:

•Shared decision making
•Personalised care and support planning
•Social prescribing and community-based support
•Supported self-management

NHS England and Improvement appointed the Royal College of General Practitioners (RCGP) as the convener of the Institute and the RCGP is working with the other royal colleges, key professional organisations, providers and patients to develop the Institute.  A consultation was organised on the proposed curriculum and RCOT commented on the document.

Link to Personalised Care Institute

England

January 2020

The GP contract framework , agreed by NHS England and NHS Improvement and General Practitioners Committee (GPC) England in January 2019, secured significant investment for primary care services and established primary care networks (PCNs) across the country.

The Primary Care Strategy and NHS Contracts Group of NHS England and NHS Improvement sought feedback on a key feature of that contract, the five national service specifications, which will be delivered by PCNs - in collaboration with community services and other providers - from April 2020.

• Structured Medication Reviews and Optimisation
• Enhanced Health in Care Homes (delivered jointly with community services providers)
• Anticipatory Care (delivered jointly with community services providers)
• Personalised Care; and
• Supporting Early Cancer Diagnosis

Read the consultation

September 2019

The National Institute for Health and Care Excellence (NICE) has proposed to broaden the types of evidence it uses to develop guidance and evaluate its effect. This will involve direct use of a range of types of data and associated analytical methods.

The NICE Data and Analytics team produced a Statement of Intent to set out the ways in which they already use data in their work, and how they would like to extend this in the future. The NICE Data and Analytics team welcomed comments from interested organisations across the health and social care sector as well as academic institutions, professional bodies, service user groups, experts by experience, charities and industry.

Comments from The Royal College on the Online Consultation:

In principle the Royal College is supportive of the proposal to draw on wider sources of data and applied analytics in NICE’s work. However in response to their questions, the Royal College highlighted;

• the need for a feasibility study  to explore the proposal further;
• the need to ensure that the potential delivery model for NICE projects involving data is commissioned via a third-party to organisation to carry out the work to ensure the quality, validity and trustworthiness of the data and analysis;
• we suggested additional data sources that were missing  from their statement;
• how to manage the increased risk of identifying individuals  as the number of data sources linked together increases;
• and highlighted the need for data ownership to be clarified, including permissions/consent required from participants for use of their data in further unspecified analysis.

July 2019

The Government in England launched a consultation on the proposal to increase provision of Changing Places toilets in specific new, large buildings commonly used by the public, as well as those undergoing building works.  The proposed approach was to introduce a mandatory requirement for Changing Places toilets in Building Regulations.

Read the consultation

November 2018

This consultation from the Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government sought views on making sure that social housing provides safe and secure homes that help people get on with their lives. The consultation was open to everyone including residents, landlords and lenders.

The consultation was divided into 5 parts:

Part 1: Ensuring homes are safe and decent

Part 2: Effective resolution of complaints

Part 3: Empowering residents and strengthening the Regulator

Part 4: Tackling stigma and celebrating thriving communities

Part 5: Expanding supply and supporting home ownership

Link to consultation

March 2018

Health Education England (HEE) published the draft strategy setting out the current workforce landscape, what had been achieved since 2012, the work under way and described an approach to shaping the face of the NHS and social care workforce for the next two decades.

Facing the Facts, Shaping the Future – a draft health and care workforce strategy for England to 2027 condenses and considers the outputs of major workforce plans for the priorities laid out in the Five Year Forward View – cancer, mental health, maternity, primary and community care and urgent and emergency care.  It has been developed by the whole health and care system and this is why it is branded as being both an NHS and Public Health England document.

The final strategy is to be published in July 2018 to coincide with the NHS’s 70^th anniversary.

Read the consultation 

Download the RCOT response

May 2017

NHS England produced two new service specifications for low and medium secure services in England as part of a national review of commissioning of specialist services in mental health. The total expenditure on these services is £1.1 billion annually which represents 61% of specialist mental health spend and covers 3,200 beds in medium secure security and 3,700 beds in low secure. It will include adults with mental illness, personality disorder, neurodevelopmental disorders, learning disabilities and Autistic Spectrum Disorder.

Questions asked  if the specifications include all the relevant information and latest evidence. The medium secure service describes the need for 25 hours of structured activity and that members of the MDT include occupational therapists. The low secure service describes occupational therapists particularly in relation to working with people with autism and learning disabilities.

Read the response.

Members were asked to share their views on a new duty to improve disabled people’s access to communal areas of residential properties and how will this impact them and people requiring adaptations?

This consultation regards the commencement and implementation of the remaining parts of section 36 of the Equality Act 2010. This legislation places a duty on landlords to make reasonable adjustments to the common parts of let residential premises when requested by a disabled person. ‘Common parts’ include outside areas, entrances, hallways, landings and stairwells.

Disabled people can already make such requests but there is currently no legal duty on the landlord to make reasonable adjustments to common parts. Before commencement, regulations will be needed to set out how the new arrangements will work. The government proposed that guidance would be drafted to help landlords and disabled people to understand their rights and obligations.

Link to consultation

RCOT provided a response to a Skills for Health consultation about a new apprenticeship standard (at level 6, England only).  A Trailblazer group has been progressing the development of an apprenticeship standard for Specialist Clinical Practitioner for some time.  This, in theory, would provide a funded CPD opportunity to enable career progression for registered professionals.

Link to consultation: https://haso.skillsforhealth.org.uk/consultations/