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Occupational Therapy Week 2021: #OTsForEquity

1 – 7 November 2021

This Occupational Therapy Week 2021 we launched our new health equity campaign #OTsForEquity.

As a profession, occupational therapists are on the frontline of health equity and are uniquely placed to understand and tackle the challenges people face. Occupational therapists see health inequalities every day, supporting and helping those most in need. 

Watch our animation to see some of the brilliant ways occupational therapists already doing this.

To coincide with the week, we published our health equity report Roots of recovery: Occupational therapy at the heart of health equity. We are calling for the effective deployment of occupational therapy to improve and establish health equity.

1. Catch up on the #OTsForEquity events that happening in Occupational Therapy Week

Watch the event recording of the #OTsForEquity: Launch event with Professor Sir Michael G. Marmot and live Q&A panel

Listen to the recording with captions of the #OTsForEquity: Twitter Spaces Conversation with Chief Executive Steve Ford.

2. Keep calling on your organisation to do more to address health equity by showing them the #OTsForEquity animation

3. Reflect on what you learnt about health equity and how you can apply this to your role using the #OTsForEquity toolkit

 

RCOT Ideas Platform

Access here

Occupational therapy and healthy equity

Roots of recovery report

We’ve published Roots of recovery: Occupational therapy at the heart of health equity In the report we call for the effective deployment of occupational therapy to help improve and establish health equity. It shares examples of occupational therapy addressing health inequalities in many key areas including primary care, education and the justice system. Read the report. 

What is health equity?
Health equity means fair opportunity to live a long, healthy life. Inequities in health are not inevitable or necessary, they are unjust and are the product of unfair social, economic and political arrangements.

Equality vs. Equity

OTWeek Health Equity

Why health equity?
The COVID-19 pandemic has shone a spotlight on the increase in health inequalities across the UK. Health inequalities are systematic differences in health between different groups of people - essentially when healthcare is unequally distributed between people and communities. 

Whilst in theory, everyone in the UK has the same access to healthcare, in reality the causes of ill health are very different depending on where you live, your socio-economic class and your ethnicity. The pandemic has highlighted how poverty, deprivation, employment and housing are closely related to health and mortality.

As the UK nations recover and rebuild from the pandemic, let’s create a healthier, more resilient society. This can only be achieved through tackling the root causes of poor health and health inequality. In short, we need to work towards health equity - a fairer distribution of health. Occupational therapists have a duty and the skills to play a key role in making this happen.

Why occupational therapists?
As a profession, occupational therapists are on the frontline of health equity and are uniquely placed to understand and tackle the challenges people face. The equity agenda relates to the population that occupational therapists serve regularly. Occupational therapists see health inequalities every day, supporting and helping those most in need.  

Occupational therapists have a unique set of skills and are already ingrained in the work in the three key routes out of poverty: education, housing and jobs. Through working in these areas occupational therapists can tackle the cause rather than the symptoms of health inequality. 

  • For example, in Tower Hamlets occupational therapists are working closely with housing planners to shape the design of homes for those with disabilities.
  • In Wales our members are embedded in GP practices, running drop-in centres aiming to help people stay in employment.
  • Across the UK occupational therapists are working in mainstream schools supporting vulnerable children to get the education they need. 

There is no ‘one size fits all’ approach. Instead, the solution needs to be person centric. Occupational therapists take a holistic approach when helping people and provide truly all-round personalised care. They don’t just look at physical health but at factors such as environmental, cultural, and social. These include working practices, leisure, and home adaptations. Underpinning occupational therapy practice is the belief that the better a person’s ability to carry out their occupations and what they enjoy doing in daily life, the happier and healthier they are. Occupational therapists can break down the barriers to these.

Your colleagues ideas for healthy equity

Check out the suggestions on the Ideas Platform about how we can address health equity as individuals, a profession and RCOT and what we can call on governments to do.

These ideas will help us build on the good work that’s already going on and to identify gaps where more is needed.

#OTsForEquity animation

Celebrate and promote how occupational therapists can help achieve health equity by sharing our #OTsForEquity animation. 

Continue to call on your organisation, manager and stakeholders to do more to achieve health equity. Use the animation to show them how to involve you and your occupational therapy colleagues.

Resources for download

Use these resources to get involved in #OTsForEquity and think about health equity within your role.

#OTsForEquity toolkit

Use our #OTsForEquity toolkit to reflect on your current understanding of health equity and what you learn during Occupational Therapy Week. It will support you to apply these learnings to your role and think about how we can create health equity within our teams, organisations and profession.

Digital resources

Share examples of the work you already do towards health equity. To help you do this, we have digital resources for you to download.

You’ll find graphics you can use on social media to post with #OTsForEquity about how you’re already addressing health equity or what you could do in future.

You can also print out the health equity A4 sheet and write your example on it.

The resources are available in English and Welsh.

 

#OTsForEquity: Launch event recording

The #OTsForEquity: Launch event took place online at the start of Occupational Therapy Week 2021 on Monday 1 November. Watch Professor Sir Michael Marmot, Director of the Institute of Health Equity, deliver his opening plenary Social justice and health equity, originally broadcast at Annual Conference 2021. Then catch up on the Q&A session about health equity that happened afterwards.

Q&A panellists

  • Panel chair – Professor Diane Cox, RCOT Chair of Council
  • Rachel Booth-Gardiner, Lead Occupational Therapist, Tees, Esk and Wear Valleys NHS Trust; OTalk; AbleOTUK
  • Dai Davies, RCOT Professional Practice Lead-Wales / Arweinydd Ymarfer Proffesiynol-Cymru
  • Linda Hindle, Deputy Chief AHP Officer for England; Office for Health Improvement and Disparities Lead Allied Health Professional and National Engagement Lead for Public health in Police, Fire and Ambulance Services
  • Sheherazad Kapadia, Student Occupational Therapist, Brunel University; BAMEOT
  • Karin Orman, RCOT Assistant Director – Professional Practice
  • Hannah Spencer, Occupational Therapist/Mental Health Practitioner, NHS; LGBTQIA+OT UK 

You can use our #OTsForEquity toolkit to reflect on your current understanding of health equity and what you learn from the launch event and Occupational Therapy Week. It will support you to apply these learnings to your role and think about how we can create health equity within our teams, organisations and profession.  

#OTsForEquity: Twitter Spaces Conversation recording

The #OTsForEquity: Twitter Spaces Conversation with Chief Executive Steve Ford took place on Friday 5 November 2021 with members and occupational therapists sharing their thoughts about health equity and the profession.

Catch up on the discussions with the captioned event recording.

Download and read the transcript of the event.

#OTsForEquity social wall

As a profession, occupational therapists are on the frontline of the health equity. You are uniquely placed to understand and tackle the challenges people face.

See what occupational therapists are doing to address health equity in their roles on the #OTsForEquity social wall.

You can also share your own #OTsForEquity examples using the campaign graphic on social media.

FAQs for #OTsForEquity

What is the #OTsForEquity toolkit? How can I use Occupational Therapy Week for my CPD?

To support your CPD, we’ve produced an #OTsForEquity toolkit. You can use this to reflect on your current understanding of health equity and what you learn during Occupational Therapy Week. It will support you to apply these learnings to your role and think about how we can create health equity within our teams, organisations and profession.

What happens after Occupational Therapy Week?
Occupational Therapy Week will be the start of the #OTsForEquity campaign for health equity. During the week we’ll be working with members to collect your ideas and identify the tools and support you need. This will help us co-create an action plan which will determine future activities.