Workforce Strategy action plan
We will deliver our first ever UK-wide Workforce Strategy using action plans for each of the four nations – England, Northern Ireland, Scotland and Wales.
In the plans, we’ll include actions that can be applied in each nation and detail:
- the position of the OT workforce using current and available data from NHS Skills for Care and the Health and Care Professions Council
- actions to transform and modernise the OT workforce
- examples of workforce modelling that can help organise skills and make sure staffing levels in services are safe.
Delivering our Workforce Strategy will be a team effort. Our action plans detail individual and collective roles and responsibilities for RCOT, our members, our stakeholder and partners, and everyone.
The table below presents our overall action plan for delivering our Workforce Strategy. Each workforce priority has actions with measures and timings. We’ll share our nation-specific plans by the end of 2024.
Workforce priority one: Optimising occupational therapy
- We will support occupational therapy practitioners to be changemakers, using their skills and knowledge to lead and co-design innovative products, interventions and services that improve people’s lives and wellbeing.
- We will champion innovative service delivery models that improve access to occupational therapy and achieve health equity for all.
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Workforce priority two: Demonstrating value and impact
- We will build our real-world and research evidence for occupational therapy and justify investment in the occupational therapy workforce by quantifying the impact.
We will work with our leaders to put the case for how and where to deploy our expertise to add the most value for people and their families, the wider health and care system and to avoid critical shortages within the OT workforce.
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Workforce priority three: Retention and career development
- We will support and promote the development of all occupational therapy practitioners, especially those from historically marginalised and under-represented communities, to be where they want to be at each stage in their career.
We will build our profession’s capacity, confidence and capability to incorporate leadership, learning, research and innovation into practice.
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Workforce priority four: Effective workforce planning
- We will empower the OT workforce to contribute to, access and use the workforce planning data and intelligence available to them.
We will empower practitioners to use available data and intelligence to make informed decisions – so we are in the right place, offering the right service to meet local population need.
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