Everyone should get the occupational therapy they need. Our health and social care systems are for everyone. These are simple, uncontroversial aims but we all know that health inequality has got worse since the first Marmot report in 2009 and has deteriorated further during the pandemic.
Everyone should get the occupational therapy they need. Our health and social care systems are for everyone. These are simple, uncontroversial aims but we all know that health inequality has got worse since the first Marmot report in 2009 and has deteriorated further during the pandemic.
Health equity is all our business and is one of RCOT’s priorities for the coming year. The time to build health equity is now, if we are to meet the needs of those we support, achieve fairness and justice for occupational therapists, and to meet our profession’s potential. We cannot just wait for things to change. We need to build on the work that some occupational therapists have already been doing. We need to make more happen.
That is easy to say and hard to do. What does it mean in practice? At a time when the day-to-day has never seemed so pressing, how do we think more widely, step forward and shake things up, and what are the best ideas? We do not pretend that RCOT has all the answers. We want to work across the occupational therapy community to kickstart this activity, to build on good work already going on and to identify gaps where more is needed.
The questions we are asking will help to build our profession’s response to health equity. Occupational therapists know that the answers lie in our personal responses, in the teams we work with, and in the services we provide.
To start with we are looking for your ideas. Through our Ideas Platform, in discussions in regional groups, Specialist Sections and beyond, we are asking if there is best practice you would like to share for what we can do as individuals and within our community, or if you have ideas that might overcome some of the barriers that you or others face. How would you like RCOT to lead on healthy equity? How can RCOT support members to create health equity and to influence external agendas? When we speak with our governments, which policy calls should we prioritise as having the greatest impact, and why?
We would also like to invite you to like and comment on the ideas that have been shared so that we they can be developed effectively. That way, we can build on the collective expertise of our profession.
After occupational therapy week we will set up a reference group which will include people with lived experience and representation from relevant communities, including public health, social care, learning disabilities and affinity groups. The ideas you provide will be used to guide this group.
We will also work with partners at local and at national level, and with leaders in health and social care and the governments in the four UK nations. As we have outlined in our report, Roots of recovery, our responses will need to deliver awareness, advocacy, and action. Some of that work will be led locally, and some will need to be driven by the Royal College.
We do not pretend that there are quick and easy fixes. There are many calls on everyone’s time and the months ahead will be tough. That is precisely why this is the time to be doing this work. We look forward to working with you to build health equity.