RCOT’s 43rd annual conference and exhibition, held at the ICC in Birmingham on 17 and 18 June, was kicked off with inspiring plenary speeches from Suzanne Rastrick, OBE, chief allied health professions officer at NHS England, and Care Minister Caroline Dinenage.
Suzanne focused on leadership within the profession through her own experience of overcoming ‘bumps in the road’ along her career trajectory and the ‘voices’ of a number of influential people within the health and social care profession.
Pulling no punches on some of the issues around overcoming the hurdles to progression and leadership she said: ’Sometimes we can be pretty unkind to our brightest and best,’ she said. ‘We can be scared of them and we try to squash them. Stop it - we have to support and nurture our colleagues.’
She outlined the five behaviours of effective leaders as: model the way; inspire a shared vision; challenge the processes; enable others to act; and encourage the heart.
She urged delegates to think about their destiny and to overcome the ‘blips’ in their own journey. Don’t destroy the young, she exclaimed, ‘be supportive and encouraging, be a terror and don't give up’. All good leaders work with others to make changes, she concluded.
Ms Dinenage started her address with a confession that, had a careers advice encounter gone differently at school, when she was told ‘You are going to be an occupational therapist’, she might have had a different life.
‘I didn’t know what an OT was and I didn’t like to ask,’ she exclaimed. It was only when she came to be a health minister that she ‘finally understood what an occupational therapist does’.
She told delegates: ‘I know how you are ahead of your time… I place enormous value on community health services and the role that occupational therapists have there. It always surprises me when people are shocked that people want be treated at home [and] OTs understand better than most that holistic, person centred care delivers the best results.’
She stressed that the government’s Long-Term Plan commits to more care closer to home, alongside real terms funding, commits to better mobile and digital technology and forces a greater role for OTs in primary care.
Referring to the profession’s role in the forthcoming green paper she promised that the government is ‘attempting to leave no stone unturned when it comes to opening new doors for occupational therapists’ and concluded ‘today’s occupational therapists in training will be part of a grand enterprise’.