Any Occupational Therapists here?

I think they're about 4th in the desirability ranking, below Physios, Pharmacists and Dieticians.

Obviously a purely subjective assessment. They also wear green trousers in my hospital which is a tough colour choice.

My mam was an OT and I believe that it was very hand on. Might depend on exactly what role you're in though?

Royal College of Occupational Therapists may be able to help? Or ring local hospital and ask to be put through to the department - may find friendly OT to give some real life experience.
My limited experience, as a nurse, sees them as very hand on with both hospital and community roles.

Hi Creg,

I'm an occupational therapist.
At 40 years old, I quit my previous career in engineering and retrained through the BSc route. I qualified in 2014 and now work as a senior OT (Band 6) on an NHS forensic mental health unit. I love my job!
Today I have provided clinical supervision to a newly qualified OT, taken the lead in a multi-disciplinary team meeting, cooked spaghetti carbonara with a couple of patients, had a quick skive on here, and now I'm going to have a 1:1 with a patient to discuss his goals.

What field are you interested in? I always wanted to work in mental health, although I briefly worked on a physical ward and hated it. What area do you live in? Drop in for a chat if you are near the Manchester area?

Hi,
Another OT here! 36 been qualified for 12 years. I'm a brain injury specialist. Completely hands on, upper limb rehab, cognitive rehab amongst loads of other things. Although lots of my work is now at team lead level, so a little less face to face contact. But anything in the physical domain (rather than mental health, this isn't my bag) is fully hands on.
I work privately and have my own small business, I also work for a robotics company
who have developed neuro rehab tech and I support them with training implementation, in theory globally, but pandemic etc. So being an OT can give you a lot of amazing opportunities, if you are that way inclined.
I absolutely love my job and feel completely privileged to do so, but it's taken a while to get to a point where I feel completely respected, this is a purely personal thing though. As the poster above mentioned we are definitely behind the pecking order in an acute setting, although, I would of course argue that we are the most important of all the AHP professions.
Also, the green trousers are indeed, horrid, but there you go.
I'm Bristol based. But feel free to drop me a PM as I'd be more than happy to talk through anything.

Just to be really clear, I would not be concerned at all about not being hands on as an OT.
For example, I worked full time in a brain injury rehab unit recently and spent at least 5 out of every 7.5 hrs being hands on 5 days a week.

Cheers
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My wife is one (mental health) and loves it. Lucky enough to have gone to New York and Australia with it. Can pass on any specific questions to her. Whereabouts in the world are you? Certainly from a mental health point of view it can vary hugely depending on which NHS region you're in (there's third sector and private opportunities too of course).

From experience it was largely women focused as a career and all about gradings from basic grade upwards, while quite interesting,if you get into the right department, hopefully training will see you work at lots of care settings and not be all classroom based,so you get to try different workplaces and looking at various clinical conditions.

Wow thanks for the information everyone. Certainly some things to think about.

I’m not going to lie I don’t think I could do mental health based work. I get it’s a big field and very important but it’s just not me. A friends daughter is just finishing up a mental health nurse degree and I spend most of my time when she’s talking about it thinking “how the f*** can you do it?” and being in general awe of her levels of patience and understanding.

I’ll see if I can get in contact with the OT team at a local hospital and see if I can get a chat with one, maybe when things have calmed down on the corona battlefront.

Thanks again

I know someone who was a teacher and she retrained as an OC and she loves her job. I think she works with the elderly. I’m retraining as a podiatrist and I’m currently in my first year. The college has a mixture of online and face to face teaching due to the current situation and so far it’s working well. It’s also very hands on too but I don’t know what’s going to happen in regards to placements for next year. So far I’m loving it and have no regrets just have brain overload at the moment with so much information to retain 🤯

I'm not sure if there is a difference between OT's employed by Health and OT's employed by the local authority?? I know both employ them but I'm not sure of the crossover. Might be worth exploring.

Fantastic thread.
Been meaning to post something similar for a while...

Any thoughts on routes into it; apprenticeship versus degree?

I already had a degree, philosophy, so completely unrelated to health and social, but managed to get on a 2 year Masters course, which was also 'free' at the time. I was lucky that I could do it full time.
I'm not sure what options are around at the moment in relation to degrees or apprenticeships. Such a shame that bursaries are no longer available for these courses.

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Not many universities are supporting the apprentice route at the moment. There used to be a 4-year (part time) option, but most seem to have dropped that too. This has been a recent topic as I supervise an enthusiastic and talented TI (Technical Instructor... The OT's laborer!) whom I've been encouraging to get the qualification.
I'd recommend the immersive experience of the 3 year full-time program. Also, the profession is almost all female... Only about 10% of the OT profession is male. I've no idea why this is... we need more blokey blokes in it!

Regarding working in mental health... it's probably not how you might imagine. You will never, ever get a thankyou card (Physical settings if you need that sort of thing) and it can be frustrating and saddening at times, but working with people over a longer period of time and really getting to know them whilst supporting their rehabilitation or recovery can be very rewarding. You can be very creative too... Some of my interventions have included getting a tattoo, going to a pub and mountain biking... you wouldn't get paid to do that in a physical setting 🙂

When Mum was in hospital the OTs were unfailingly cheerful and keen and went to extraordinary lengths to get her to try and walk a few steps across the ward - because her feet and legs were so swollen finding footwear was a problem but the big Polish bloke (the other one was a woman) was all "hold my beer", dashed off, and returned with some odds and sods and bits of velcro which sorted it.

I was very touched, particularly as by then we knew (I'm not sure TBH if anyone had looped in the OT team mind!) that she wasn't going to make it.

It may not be that high in the pecking order but these are people who literally help folks get their lives back (or as much as is possible).

I think I work for the same trust as Stanley! I'm a support worker, who's trying to retrain as an OT after spending a decade as a journalist. There are apprenticeship routes, but it's very early days and the local uni (Salford) aren't offering it at the moment. If you want to go down the apprenticeship route it's worth getting a more junior role working under an OT, so you're in a good position to apply and get support when they do open up the apprenticeship pathway - you'll need an senior OT willing to supervise you.

I know some of the courses can be quite competitive and most universities will ask for some experience in a clinical setting, so if you're serious consider some volunteering at an acute or MH trust too.

Finally don't discount mental health - it can be a thankless job, but it's also incredibly rewarding and diverse, some days I'm in a joinery workshop, painting, gardening or just helping someone start to use public transport again. No person is the same or has the same goals/needs to get back into life, so everyday is a bit different!

@stanley
Just for a bit of balance to your comments re: mental health setting and physical setting.

I work in brain injury rehab, obviously a physical setting, and I've been paid to do so many cool community based interventions with my clients, including, hiking, biking, fishing, boating, trips to cinemas, shopping, band practice studios, eating out.
All in the name of upper limb, cognitive and fatigue rehab!

To be fair we do get thank you cards on occasion 😉

Re: OT males. Yep, we need more!!!
I do enjoy working with women though, no egos, no dick swinging (like physios...)
Not sure I could ever work in a blokey bloke type environment now.

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Hi Ad,
I actually thought about that after I'd posted... I made things sound a bit "one thing or the other" which isn't very accurate. My limited experience in physical was on an FNOF ward, although there were lots of TKR's and similar there too. I just found it really prescriptive and limiting. There was an emphasis on getting patients out of the ward asap... "Hip precautions, toilet seat raiser and off you go!"
Working with brain injuries must be extremely rewarding and allow you to be creative and use almost any activity as a therapeutic intervention that works for your client.
There are so many aspects of occupational therapy; we can work with anyone anywhere. It's probably about getting into a field that you are interested in and can use OT skills. The thought of a forensic setting terrified me as a student, but I can't imagine wanting to work anywhere else now. Mature students tend to make great OTs as they usually come with lots of life skills and varied experiences. Of course, younger folks can make great OTs too. I recently had a 22 years old student that I would have happily employed tomorrow.
I'd happily talk about the benefits of the profession all day long!

Some really interesting posts here.

I’ve been mulling it over throughout the day and I’ve come to the conclusion that it’s not for me. When I really stop and think about it I can’t pin down any decent motivations for retraining and undertaking a new career in healthcare as it generally boils down to “well it’s a stable job” rather than doing it because I want the satisfaction of helping people get their lives back to normal. It just wouldn’t feel right, I’d feel like a bit of a fraud.

Thanks to those who posted and to those who are looking to retrain or are indeed retraining then good luck.

I have 3 thank you cards, which I am very proud of 😆

I did a placement for 8 weeks in neuro rehab I think when I was 18, but for whatever reason I did history instead of OT at uni.
I've spent 2 years trying via the apprenticeship route, trusts seem keen, but no further luck.

As for the workplace.
I couldn't imagine working in a non-mh setting now, stuck with boring ****s taking photos of their shite lunch talking about their shite life. I've always found the young people polite and ask how you are doing and what you've been up to. Also, much more fun to see someone's shite lunch flying across the room!

I'm gonna sort my uni application out in the next week. Anyone up for going through my personal statement please?

Hi Banks, I've replied to your pm.
Creg... we all feel like that sometimes!

@Stanley
Your are completely right about an Ortho ward!
"Here's your raised toilet seat, see you later". I quickly realised that this was not for me, so went down the physical rehab route.

Brain injury rehab is incredibly rewarding, but so must working in Forensic mental health. I did a placement during my training at a Medium Secure unit near Preston. It was a great placement and an experience I will never forget, kind of scary though!

Mature students really do make great OT's and seem to advance into more interesting/challenging roles quicker too.

We DO need more male OT's though, I can't be certain, but I am sure that being male in a female dominated world has opened up some doors for me that wouldn't have been there otherwise.

Social Worker here so work regularly with OT’s, both council and NHS. The NHS ones in mental health forensic wards seem to have the cushiest job ever.....bit of gardening, baking, etc, I’m not to sure what they do, while the mainstream hospital ones looks a bit tougher, much faster pace. Social Work OTs have the added pressure of eligibility criteria and seeking funding too.

Holy thread resurrection.

Just an update to say I start an MSc Occupational Therapy program in January. I applied to start Jan this year but it was full so I got 2023 instead.

Looking forward to it although god knows what state the NHS will be in by the time I qualify (thanks Tories!) so will be looking at jobs both here and abroad.

Well done you!
All the best with your new course and career 🙂👍

@Creg Nice One! I work alongside an OT and their skillset is amazing. Enjoy.