Occupational Therapy News OTnews January 2019 | Page 57

As we increasingly need to position occupational therapy
into the realm of prevention, we met last year with many
key stakeholders to raise the profile of the profession in
primary care and to encourage the use of a first contact
practitioner model. Our work in this area has been very
well received and will remain a key focus for 2019.
Beyond the world of policy and decision makers, as
an educator myself, I was thrilled to see new HEIs
starting to offer occupational therapy pathways, both
traditional degrees and apprenticeships, to new cohorts
of budding occupational therapists. As new generations
seek rewarding careers that will make a positive
contribution to society, it is wonderful to see growing
numbers choosing occupational therapy as their way to
make their contribution. Students are also increasingly
choosing to join us as members, and today our market
share has reached 75 per cent of the total number
of students undertaking an occupational therapy
qualification.
We continue to work collaboratively with HEIs to ensure
that pre-registration occupational therapy programmes
in the UK are of the highest standard. In August
2018, we undertook a comprehensive study to scope
research-related curricula into context with RCOT pre-
registration educational standards. The study helped
us uncover discrepancies which can now be tackled
head on in our pre-registration education standards
review, which will get underway in 2019. This work
will be crucial to improving the research confidence
and capability of occupational therapy graduates, and
therefore the authoritativeness of future occupational
therapy research.
A year on since its launch, in September last year,
our Career Development framework underwent
a review, which 150 members contributed to. The
findings showed that members find the framework
a really supportive tool to shape their learning and
development, especially at key moments such as
appraisals or when having conversations around pay
review. We continue to work to perfect the framework,
with several new additional resources being released in
2019.
We have also been improving services for our
members across many activities. Most notably, our
RCOT library launched a new library catalogue portal,
which is accessible to all members, that provides
faster access to our resources, including ebooks
and electronic theses, and in general saves time
and improves support for our members’ learning,
CPD and practice. Also, our Professional Practice
Enquiry Service supported 2,147 enquiries, and our
professional advisers have travelled far and wide to all
four nations to support members.
The organisation continues to be in a healthy financial
position, with reserves within the target set by Council.
Membership subscriptions are the organisation’s
largest source of income, but other key sources of
income come mainly from conferences and events,
advertising and income from investments.

Our charitable activities, such as our work supporting
professional practice, education, research and
development, membership services, the publication
of OTnews, and conferences and events, make up the
largest part of our expenditure. Other costs include
providing industrial relations support to members via
Unison.
Finally, I just want to conclude by saying thank you
to all of you, our members, without whom none of
our work would be possible. After only launching our
new Strategic Intentions seven months ago, we have
made fantastic steps towards securing the future of
our profession and positioning ourselves for the 21 st
century. Here’s to another, highly successful 2019.
Dr Patricia McClure, Chairman of Council
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