Given the ongoing challenges in the health and care system, RCOT believes it has become a strategic priority to create a sustainable, flexible, and adaptable workforce that can embrace new ways of working.
RCOT’s Informed View focuses on the advancement of occupational therapy roles in all settings and within all sectors across all four home nations. It identifies the knowledge and skills that occupational therapists bring, or could bring, to a number of different roles at advanced and consultant levels of practice.
RCOT’s view, is that occupational therapists working at either advanced or consultant levels of practice have an advanced and critical understanding of the complex interplay between the person, their occupations and their environment. Occupational therapists working at this level are able to deal with the complexity across all four Pillars of Practice, as detailed within the Career Development Framework.
The informed view has been written following consultation with RCOT members, working at or inspiring to advanced or consultant levels of practice, across all sectors in health, social care, and academia. Given the broad scope of occupational therapy practice, RCOT believes that various job roles can be enacted at advanced and consultant levels of practice, including new and emerging roles.
Paul Cooper, RCOT Lead Professional Adviser, states “working at advanced levels of practice is not new to occupational therapists, but this can still be an area dominated by other health and care professionals. As a profession we have a lot to offer the people in receipt of our services and the systems we work in. Occupational therapists have a great opportunity to articulate that offer and we hope the RCOT Informed View will support that”.
When asked how they would use the informed view at a recent RCOT virtual conference session, members stated it would help articulate the breadth and unique role of the profession, support them in the creation of new career development paths in social care; help in articulating the role and opportunity for OT within restructuring projects and be used to influence the content of university programmes.
Today (July 5) also marks the launch of a bespoke web-platform for information relating to Health Education England’s Advancing Practice work, New Centre for Advancing Practice.
Beverley Harden, National Lead for Advancing Practice, Health Education England, says “The new website reflects the direction of the Centre as we address the priority outlined in the NHSPeople Plan for highly experienced clinicians who are trained to an advanced level of practice.
The aim is for our website to provide a space designed for our stakeholders and their information needs.”
Alongside useful information, the website will provide an online information hub for stakeholders to explore, learn and engage.
For more information, updates and additional resources on RCOT work on advancing practice across the UK, refer to the Advancing practice topics page.