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Occupational Therapy

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Key People:

  • Professional Lead Occupational Therapist:

    Jo Poulton

  • Practice Development Occupational Therapist:

    Leanne Hunt

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Overview

An Occupational Therapist will work with a person to design a program of treatment based on the individual’s unique lifestyle and preferences, sometimes modifying the environment surrounding the person.  Occupational Therapists consider the importance of how a person’s physical, mental and social needs will impact on their recovery process, and empowers them to achieve the goals that are most important to them. Occupational Therapists recognise that being able to perform these daily activities is crucial to health and wellbeing.

The Occupational Therapy department at Dartford and Gravesham Trust provides an outpatient and inpatient service to our local community. The inpatient service provides assessment in managing activities of daily living to support a safe discharge from hospital from Darent Valley Hospital, with the elective orthopaedic service based at Queen Mary’s Sidcup. The outpatient Occupational Therapy Service offers a specialist, client centred triaged service for the assessment and treatment of service users with a wide range of conditions including: musculoskeletal; rheumatological; neurological; plastic hand surgery; chronic pain. 

We regularly welcome students on placement at Darent Valley Hospital and are proud of our reputation in providing an excellent placement experience. Our staff regularly undertake training as practice educators and our practice development Occupational Therapist, Leanne Hunt, supports and co-ordinates all our student placements. Students also have the opportunity to engage in Darent Valley’s inter-professional student surgery each month, co-ordinated by our Clinical Education Department. 

Teaching

We have a bands 2-4 development programme where training is provided to facilitate professional development. All staff have protected and structured time each month to enable access to training, review of journals and the latest evidence base, participation in audits, and for peer support. We currently have 3 members of staff who are undertaking their OT degree apprenticeships, and are supported by a mentor. Our preceptorship programme enables our new graduates to build on and consolidate their learning through the achievement of competencies. In addition to in-house teaching, qualified staff are able to access their CPD funds from HEE to support access to specialist courses.

Continuing Professional Development Portfolio

All qualified staff are required to maintain a CPD portfolio in line with HCPC and RCOT requirements, which is reviewed at staff’s personal development reviews. We also encourage our bands 2-4 staff to maintain a CPD portfolio to support self-development and career development.

Apprentice Testimonials

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Why we like being an apprentice
We are all really excited to be on a course that has given us the opportunity to train in a profession we enjoy and have been working in for varying years previous to starting the course. We have already gained invaluable knowledge about what it is to be an Occupational Therapist so we were all confident this is the career we wished to pursue before starting the course.

We have all previously undertaken degrees in different non-health areas and the apprenticeship scheme has enabled us to easily go back into higher education and assures us we can go straight into a qualified band 5 job at the end of our training with no financial burden to us. With different life circumstances, mortgages and caring needs, learning on the job and getting paid was essential for each of us. We have the support of qualified colleagues and an Occupational Therapy apprentice mentor who have all helped us every step of the way and we can use their experience to guide and us throughout the course. We did not have such support from a mentor in our first degrees and it has been evident how beneficial and encouraging having such input has assisted with getting the best learning from us but also receiving the best service from the university. For this reason the apprenticeship scheme would also be suitable for newcomers to the NHS as the support network is already there. Working with qualified therapist assists us with putting theory into practice, enabling us to use what we learn in lectures in our work setting, gaining nuggets of wisdom at the same time.

Being an apprentice as part of a work based scheme has enabled each of us to develop in an area we are passionate about and have shown we have the skills and dedication for during already, giving us the opportunity for progression in our careers.

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