Welcome to OTnews
Welcome to your April issue of OTnews . Our cover story this month looks at the value of occupational therapy within addictions services .
I talked to Sandra Treloar , a Band Six Occupational Therapist in Acute Neurology at Queen Alexandra Hospital , about her work to improve the links between acute neurology and the alcohol specialist nurse service , which started with a service audit back in 2015 .
The aim of the audit was to establish how many patients the acute neurology team was seeing , where alcohol featured within their admission and new brain injury . This led to developing new standards of care for this patient group and developed links with the alcohol nurse specialist service .
This in turn created a brand-new role emerging placement opportunity , which led to an exciting permanent position for an occupational therapist within the team . Turn to page 16 to find out more .
Then , on page 28 , we hear from Lisa Greer and Karen Symington , occupational therapists within NHS Lanarkshire , who describe how a small test of change in 2017 to assess the impact of occupational therapy in GP surgeries was grown into a successful service .
Supported and funded by NHS Lanarkshire ’ s mental health and primary care transformation programme , the initial initiative was part of a Scotland-wide programme to redesign primary care services by improving access to a range of health and social care professionals , through the development of primary care multidisciplinary teams .
The second phase , to test the effectiveness of the model on a larger scale , has resulted in the recruitment of 11 additional occupational therapy staff and the extension of the service to 21 GP practices across two NHS Lanarkshire localities .
Among other features this month , we hear how a creative activity project to explore stigma and identity is supporting patients at Rampton high secure hospital to reconstruct healthy feelings of self-worth ( page 38 ).
While on page 20 , Linda Horan explains how , due to the reinvention of services during the pandemic , the multidisciplinary falls clinic at Guys Hospital had to find an alternative pathway that reduced risk and maintained quality of care .
I hope you enjoy this month ’ s magazine , and as ever , if you would like to share your innovative service developments or examples of good practice in a future issue , then please get in touch .
I ’ d love to hear from you
Cover image : SolStock via Getty Images
If you have any feedback about this issue of OTnews , or would like to contribute a short article or feature for a future publication , please email me at : editorial @ rcot . co . uk
Tracey Samuels Editor
April 2022 OTnews 3