Occupational Therapy

I’m Janet Thomas and I am a Senior Occupational Therapist working in a community mental health team.

Oxleas offers great opportunities to occupational therapists, both in terms of variety of work and professional development.

As Oxleas is a large trust spread over three London boroughs, there are plenty of opportunities to develop your career or move from one type of service to another. For example, you may wish to work in an inpatient team,  a multidisciplinary community team with working age adults, older adults or learning disability.

OTs benefit from plentiful training both within Oxleas and externally, and are supported to develop their academic career by doing further qualifications and research. Other major benefits offered by the trust include supporting OT assistants to become fully fledged OTs by funding a four year, in service degree course. There are also opportunities to move into management and senior management.

The trust has also set up structures to support OTs  in their own role. There is regular professional supervision, peer support groups, time for CPD – which is continuous professional development, and an annual away day. Vish Naick believes that this support has helped to make his job enjoyable and fulfilling.

My name is Vish Naick and I work in a dual role as a team co-ordinator and occupational therapist at the older people’s service, TOPS. TOPS is a day service for older people with learning disabilities and dementia.

I enjoy the work as it is diverse and interesting.  I find it engaging and worthwhile as I know I am helping the people I work with to lead as independent and fulfilling lives as possible.

As an OT at Oxleas my job involves much more than simply completing OT assessments. My role enables me to train, educate, inform and support not just the people who use our services, but also other team members and healthcare professionals.

Before I came to Oxleas my head OT was not very supportive and being newly qualified I felt I had to run on my own which was difficult. Nowadays I am lucky as I have two line managers and structured professional support from colleagues. On top of this, my team at TOPS helps me to get the most out of my working day by enabling me to reflect on the work I have completed.

Oxleas has enabled me to continue my professional development by encouraging me to attend numerous training courses. I am also given time to work on my portfolio, which is a record of my continued training - a big part of developing my knowledge and skills base as an OT.

I live quite far away from work and have to get up very early to make my way here.    But it’s worth it as I really enjoy my working day and look forward to meeting people and improving the lives of those I come into contact with, both service users and colleagues.