21 December 2023

Occupational Therapists from the Hillingdon Community Mental Health Hub (CMHH) have undertaken a project to better understand the career development pathways at CNWL.

Their work was presented at the recent Occupational Therapy Show, and the team took away first place for the project.

You can read more about the project in an OTnews article from November 2023, the monthly magazine from the Royal College of Occupational Therapists (RCOT).

For the project, they explored the makeup of Occupational Therapists in the Hillingdon CMHH as well as each team member’s career progression and their experiences of transition, which indicated:

  • There has been a 5.5 per cent increase within the Trust’s occupational therapy workforce for mental health
  • 33.3 per cent of occupational therapy staff have been promoted since 2020

Using this workforce data, they were able to identify the growth opportunities for individual occupational therapists within the Trust as well as the wider team.

The article reads:

“By growing our own workforce through apprenticeships and by embracing international recruitment, not only can the growing demand for trained professionals be met, diversity and innovation can be encouraged and promoted.”

The team hopes to use the findings to inform the CNWL Allied Health Professions (AHP) workforce supply strategy, which focuses on developing our unregistered staff and apprenticeships, increasing clinical education and providing career clinics.

ToniSam Doolings Dumas, Occupational Therapist from the Hillingdon CMHH said:

“Through the lens of the team, we were able to capture an understanding of the makeup of a diversified team. With sharing our journey, we hope to inform future OTs within CNWL and ultimately place a spotlight on what growth opportunities are available.”

Emma Nicklin, Associate Director of Allied Health Professions, adds:

“As a large trust with over 300 occupational therapy roles, in multiple specialities, I honestly believe that staff can have a career for life with us, but this means we have a responsibility to grow, develop and support our occupational therapists.”