Occupational Therapy News OTnews November 2019 | Page 18

FEATURE MANUAL HANDLING involved improves consistency and quality of care and can help build better relationships with clients; • reduced frequency of care visits within a person’s home and reduced number of carers makes the care process less intrusive; increased care time available builds capacity to • address unmet need in the community; less • use of equipment can lead to resources being available to meet the care needs of others; and • improved client satisfaction. ‘‘ And finally, the organisational outcomes included: • greater integration, communication and engagement between agencies; indicates that carers are improvement in their health of services; state, reduction in anxiety, more confident and skilled Improved manual depression and pain, and in using new equipment handling techniques carers feeling more skilled and manual handling introduction to new and confident in care delivery, equipment and new were not allocated a monetary techniques information gives staff value, however these results increased confidence; support that the outcomes of the increased training and upskilling of project have been achieved and that care staff; there has been both social and economic staff are more risk aware and less risk averse; return on investment in reviewing double handed improved use of resources and capacity, as hours packages of care. released means staff are able to see more clients; and References reduced waiting times for care provision. Phillips J, Mellson J and Richardson N (2014) It takes two? • improved understanding • • • • • related to accessing their community or work (RCOT 2019). In accord with this, the double handed care package review undertaken by Inclusion.me released time back to the care system to improve capacity for care within the borough. The cost savings identified as a result of the project were significant, with a healthy economic return on investment for the council on every £1 spent. Feedback from the review indicates that carers are more confident and skilled in using new equipment and manual handling techniques, while the risk assessments carried out with all the clients referred to the project have resulted in carers saying they are more risk aware. Feedback The social value identified, from the review with clients feeling Analysis of the figures identified that for every £1 spent on the project by Thurrock, including equipment provision, the return on investment was £2.41. The project reviewed all clients who had double handed packages of care in place in Thurrock. As the annual care review is usually undertaken by a social worker, with client contact time estimated at one hour, including these figures would provide an additional £5,856 of savings, and an additional 96 hours of social worker time released for other clients. In Relieving the pressure on social care: the value of occupational therapy, RCOT highlight that, despite making up just per cent of the regulated workforce, occupational therapists address 35 to 45 per cent of local authority referrals, and that occupational therapists take a holistic approach to providing social care. Occupational therapists look at not only the person, but their occupations and their environment, whether it is within their home or 18 OTnews November 2019 Exploring the manual handling myth. Project Report. HFH Consulting and University of Salford. Available online at: http://usir.salford.ac.uk/id/eprint/43619/ [accessed 9 October 2019] Robinson C and Arnold Z (2012) Double handed care: a leading role for OT? Occupational Therapy News 20(12): 28-29 Royal College of Occupational Therapists (2019) Relieving the pressure on social care: the value of occupational therapy. RCOT. London. Available online at: www.rcot. co.uk/promoting-occupational-therapy/occupational- therapy-improving-lives-saving-money [accessed 9 October 2019] Matthew Box, occupational therapist and director of Inclusion.me, and Linda Agnew, independent occupational therapist. Inclusion.me provides independent occupational therapy and access solutions. Visit: www.inclusion.me.uk or email: [email protected]