“Activities are everyone’s business”

I am honoured to be able to facilitate the #OTalk this Tuesday evening on the topic of activity and the need for everybody to engage in the delivery of activity to the people we work with.

Occupational Therapists have always known and valued the importance of activity. No matter what the setting, activity has always remained at the foundations of the services we provide. It is a hot topic in every healthcare environment I have experienced and each with varying attitudes towards the use of activity.

In recent years, more guidance is indicating the importance of meaningful activity in the care of people who use services. In February 2015, the National Institute of Clinical Excellence (2015, web link) issued a briefing on Older Persons services and highlighted the importance of occupational therapy-enabled activity. British College of Occupational Therapists provided guidance to care homes on the provision of meaningful activity with older people.  Another example comes from the Commissioning for Quality and Innovation (CQUIN) targets, which guide services to provide 25 hours of meaningful activity.

Activity is now everyone’s business. The opinions that Occupational Therapists are only there to provide ‘something to do’ is changing, but there is still work to be done. In my own role, I spend a portion of my working week educating staff who are engaging the individual to ensure they understand and promote activity as part of recovery. It is an area I have found myself becoming more intrigued by and the #OTalk will help explore lots of different strands of this subject. The aim of this #OTalk is to discuss this and ask ourselves some questions to stimulate debate;

1)      How are we, as a profession responding to recent guidance which indicates the increased importance on activity provision?

2)      Have you got any good examples of practice where OTs have been able to engage a wider staff team and people who use services in meaningful activities?

3)      What are the biggest challenges you face in practice when using meaningful activity as an intervention?

John Pope @johnpope87

Resources

NICE (2015) Older people in care homes.   Web link: http://www.nice.org.uk/advice/LGB25

British Association of Occupational Therapists (2015) “Lack of meaningful activity in care homes can signal wider neglect” (Web site: https://www.cot.co.uk/news/lack-meaningful-activity-care-homes-can-signal-wider-neglect)

Reeve. M “25 hours of structured activity” http://www.rcpsych.ac.uk/pdf/25%20Hours%20of%20Activity.pdf

Thanks to John again for hosting – here’s the transcript link and PDF.