Representing you and our profession in your nation and beyond – August 2025

The UK Government has published Fit for the Future: A 10-Year Health and Care Plan for England, setting out a new direction for the NHS, focusing on three major shifts:

• a stronger focus on prevention
• the greater use of technology – aiding more personalised support  
• a transition from hospital-based services to integrated, community-based support.

For occupational therapists, these principles will feel familiar. Enabling people to live meaningful, independent lives through place-based, person-centred care is at the heart of what we do.

It's great to see occupational therapy recognised as being key to supporting children with Special Educational Needs and Disabilities (SEND), highlighting the need for better support for children with complex needs in schools and communities.

The Plan aligns closely with our vision for the profession – as set out in our Workforce Strategy.

But ... there are still important questions to answer – around how it will be funded, and how the workforce will be supported to deliver on its ambitions. That’s why we’ve written to relevant Ministers requesting meetings to ensure occupational therapy is not just compatible with system reform, but central to delivering it.

We’ll unpack what this means for the profession in the next issue of OTnews – look out for August’s issue online or on your door mat.

Children’s services are increasingly in the spotlight – both politically and in the media – with a growing focus on access and support for families navigating the SEND system.

We’ve been building momentum to ensure occupational therapy is part of this conversation.

My colleague and RCOT Professional Advisor, Dr Sally Payne, was invited to give oral evidence to the Health and Social Care Select Committee in July. She spoke about the critical role of occupational therapy in supporting children and families, and shared findings from our recent workforce survey.

She also promoted our OT Workforce Strategy and emphasised the need to address workforce gaps into children’s services. Look out for Sally’s reflections on her session in August’s OTnews.

We’ve also written to education ministers requesting involvement in the development of the forthcoming Schools White Paper, so that occupational therapy is recognised and embedded in future policy.

Alongside this, we are supporting the Disabled Children’s Partnership’s Fight for Ordinary campaign, which calls for better access to services for disabled children and their families. 

The Department of Health in Northern Ireland has published its  Health and Social Care Reset Plan, outlining a strategy to address a £600 million funding gap through prevention, neighbourhood-based care and service integration.

I was pleased to see a strong alignment between the Plan’s priorities and the core values of occupational therapy:

• promoting independence
• reducing hospital admissions
• improving long-term outcomes through early intervention.

We’re using this alignment to demonstrate how occupational therapy can help deliver system transformation.

And this work ties in directly with our 2025 OT Week and annual campaign which will spotlight prevention and early intervention.

We continue to work with the Community Rehabilitation Alliance to push for progress on the Rehabilitation Framework and advocate for the appointment of a Rehabilitation Lead.

Following a series of successful political roundtable meetings, the Alliance has written to all the political parties to reaffirm their support for a Rehabilitation Lead as an essential role to drive forward progress.

Looking ahead, we are preparing for a meeting with Mike Farrar, the newly appointed Permanent Secretary of the Department of Health and Social Care, through the Allied Health Professions Federation Northern Ireland (AHPFNI).

We’ll highlight the value of occupational therapy in responding to system challenges and influence future policy direction to ensure occupational therapy is considered integral to the transformation of health and social care services in Northern Ireland.

Neurology Review consultation

This month, we’ve engaged members in shaping our response to the Neurology Review consultation, advocating for the inclusion of occupational therapy in pathways that support long-term neurological conditions.  

Children and Young People’s Emotional Wellbeing Framework

We’ve also contributed to the development of the Children and Young People’s Emotional Wellbeing Framework, emphasising the critical role occupational therapists play in early intervention and holistic mental health support.  

Work with AHPFNI

In recent weeks, we have worked closely with Emma Dunn, RCOT’s representative on AHPFNI. Emma’s insights help ensure that our policy influencing reflects the reality of occupational therapy practice on the ground.  

Our Northern Ireland Workforce Strategy Advisory Group

We were delighted to welcome seven new member volunteers to the RCOT Northern Ireland Workforce Strategy Advisory Group. This expanded group brings a diverse range of experience and insight to strengthen our response and our ability to deliver our Action Plan.

If you’re interested in learning more about our Advisory Group and how you can get involved, please do get in touch by emailing cliona.mcsherry@rcot.co.uk. 

HSC Trusts

Helping  our members grow and thrive in their careers is a top priority for us in Northern Ireland. We ran a successful workshop with representatives from each Health and Social Care (HSC) Trust. The workshop gave members detailed training on the CPD portfolio platform, which is part of your RCOT membership. With their increased understanding, they can now spread knowledge to other colleagues.

Following the retirement of Chief AHP Officer Ruth Crowder, we’ve written, alongside AHPF Cymru, to the Cabinet Secretary for Health and Social Care to call for the role to be elevated – on par with Chief Medical and Nursing Officers.

We’re pleased that our calls are backed by a Welsh Government advisory group, which has recommended a leadership ‘triumvirate’ model – placing AHPs alongside doctors and nurses in system leadership.

We’re expecting a new Chief Allied Health Professions Officer (CAHPO) to be appointed soon and we’ll keep members updated on any changes to the role. 

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I joined RCOT as Policy and Public Affairs Lead for Wales in July.

Over the past few weeks, I’ve been meeting with members across networks, including the All Wales Paediatric OT Network, the AHP Dementia Network and the All Wales Primary Care OT Network.

As your voice to key stakeholders, I want to hear from you – if you’d like to share any thoughts or insight or find time to meet, please email me at Paul.Smith@rcot.co.uk.  

This month, we’ve submitted evidence on the development of a multi-professional team toolkit and started work on consultations relating to additional learning needs and palliative care.

Your input makes this possible – and we’re now re-launching the Advisory Board for Wales. If you’d like to help shape our influencing work, please complete this short form:

Expression of interest form

July saw the publication of two significant Scottish Government frameworks:

• the Population Health Framework
• the Health and Social Care Service Renewal Framework.

These documents outline a long-term vision for improving health outcomes and reducing inequalities across Scotland. More to come on this in August’s OTnews, but please do read and engage with these frameworks to understand how they are relevant to your practice

Key developments include:

• A shift in investment towards primary and community care – moving away from hospital-centric models.
• The creation of NHS Delivery, merging NHS Education Scotland (NES) and NHS National Services Scotland (NSS) to focus on education and innovation.
• A renewed commitment to rehabilitation services – where we know occupational therapy plays a central role.

We held two member drop-in sessions to help us respond to the Long-Term Conditions Framework consultation. We welcomed many aspects of the draft and also highlighted areas needing clarity and potential unintended consequences. Our response will be published soon, and we look forward to reading the final framework in December 2025.

We’ve also been working with other professional bodies to respond on behalf of the Allied Health Professions Federation Scotland (AHPFS) and wrote to the Cabinet Secretary for Health to express the Federation’s concerns and call for further discussion.

We responded on behalf of the AHPFS to the announcement of the ‘Earn as You Learn’ initiative for learning disability nurses. While we support expanding access to health careers, we emphasised the need for equivalent opportunities for occupational therapists – a long-standing priority for our profession.

We were also pleased to meet with Tom Arthur, the new Minister for Social Care, to introduce our work and highlight the challenges facing local authority social work OTs.

The Minister also holds responsibility for mental health treatment and care, and expressed interest in a dedicated meeting to explore this area further. We will continue to engage with his office over the coming months ahead of the election in 2026.

During our discussion, we made two key asks:

• that allied health professionals are formally represented on the new National Care Service Board
• that the structure of Integration Joint Boards is reformed to ensure appropriate AHP leadership. 

Regional engagement remains central to our work. This month, we visited OT leads in Dundee to hear directly about the pressures in physical health services – insight that informs our influencing.

We also met with the Scottish Directors of Allied Health Professions (SDAHP) to discuss our main calls ahead of next year’s election in Scotland. More to come on our election plans in the coming months.