Occupational Therapy News OTnews April 2019 | Page 30

FEATURE SERVICE REDESIGN
The transformation project
Occupational therapists in project management roles: Laura Garratt looks at the
use of job planning to evidence activity and clinical capacity in an acute hospital
T
30 OTnews April 2019
he NHS is in financial deficit. In 2016,
Lord Carter recommended that acute
hospitals should remove unwarranted
variation to improve productivity, and
Nottingham University Hospitals NHS Trust (NUH) external drivers, as NHS Improvement recommends
that all allied health professionals have a job plan
(NHSI 2017).
As a result, the Productive Therapies Project was
created – utilising occupational therapy leaders to
has increasing internal pressures to improve flow and
reduce patients’ length of stay in, without increasing
resources.
Clinical therapy staff, including occupational
therapists, have a vital role to facilitate flow and
reduce hospital length of stay. In addition, there are project manage this important work. The aim was to
increase the understanding and visibility of therapists’
activities and use of time, and be able to identify and
reduce unwarranted variation within and across teams.
Therapy staff in scope included occupational
therapists, physiotherapists and dietitians.