Occupational therapy in the United Kingdom
Encyclopedia
Occupational therapy education in the UK
Every year around 1,500 new students embark on training to become registered occupational therapists. To qualify as an occupational therapist one is required undertake an approved programme of study at one of the 31 UK universities offering occupational therapy education. There are a variety of full and part time programmes available in occupational therapy the UK, most are Bachelor of ScienceBachelor of Science
A Bachelor of Science is an undergraduate academic degree awarded for completed courses that generally last three to five years .-Australia:In Australia, the BSc is a 3 year degree, offered from 1st year on...
(with Honours) degrees; some are Postgraduate Diplomas, others are Master's degree
Master's degree
A master's is an academic degree granted to individuals who have undergone study demonstrating a mastery or high-order overview of a specific field of study or area of professional practice...
s.
All programmes must be approved by the Health Professions Council
Health Professions Council
The Health Professions Council is a statutory regulator of 210,000 health professionals from 15 professions in the United Kingdom. It was set up in 2003 under the National Health Service Reform and Health Care Professions Act 2002, to replace the Council for Professions Supplementary to Medicine ....
(HPC) as meeting their minimum standards. This approval is mandatory in order for the graduates to be registered to practice. In contrast, accreditation is a voluntary process which confers further recognition of a programme by the College of Occupational Therapists (COT). Those universities that continue to be accredited have committed to working in partnership with the professional body (the COT) to maintain high standards of education and practice, and to steer the profession’s development within the UK and abroad.
The content of programmes varies but all combine both practice and academic study. Academic components may include anatomy
Anatomy
Anatomy is a branch of biology and medicine that is the consideration of the structure of living things. It is a general term that includes human anatomy, animal anatomy , and plant anatomy...
and physiology
Physiology
Physiology is the science of the function of living systems. This includes how organisms, organ systems, organs, cells, and bio-molecules carry out the chemical or physical functions that exist in a living system. The highest honor awarded in physiology is the Nobel Prize in Physiology or...
, psychology
Psychology
Psychology is the study of the mind and behavior. Its immediate goal is to understand individuals and groups by both establishing general principles and researching specific cases. For many, the ultimate goal of psychology is to benefit society...
and sociology
Sociology
Sociology is the study of society. It is a social science—a term with which it is sometimes synonymous—which uses various methods of empirical investigation and critical analysis to develop a body of knowledge about human social activity...
, occupational therapy knowledge and skills, creative and management skills, therapeutic interventions, environmental adaptations and research methods and applications.
History of occupational therapy in the UK
In the late 19th and 20th centuries, the establishment of public health measures to control infectious diseases included the building of fever hospitals. Patients with tuberculosis were recommended to have a regime of prolonged bed rest followed by a gradual increase in exercise. Dr Philip, a Scottish physician, prescribed graded activity from complete rest through to gentle exercise and eventually to activities such as digging, sawing, carpentry and window cleaning. During this period a farm colony near EdinburghEdinburgh
Edinburgh is the capital city of Scotland, the second largest city in Scotland, and the eighth most populous in the United Kingdom. The City of Edinburgh Council governs one of Scotland's 32 local government council areas. The council area includes urban Edinburgh and a rural area...
and a village settlement near Papworth
Papworth
Papworth may refer to:* Papworth Everard, a village in Cambridgeshire in England* Papworth Hospital, a heart hospital in Papworth Everard* Papworth method, a specific diaphragmatic breathing technique developed at Papworth Hospital...
in Cambridgeshire were established, both of which aimed to employ people in appropriate long-term work prior to their return to open employment.
During and after the First World War, casualties amongst young men resulted in an acute shortage of manpower in the workforce. The need to re-establish these men in open employment facilitated the growth of OT in the treatment of those with physical disabilities. Curative workshops were opened within military hospitals, based on similar workshops already established in the United States, and were equipped with tools and machinery to exercise joints and muscles. Based on these workshops the first occupational therapy department in Scotland was opened in 1936 at the Astley Ainslie Institution
Astley Ainslie Hospital
The Astley Ainslie Hospital is a Community Hospital in Edinburgh, Scotland. It is operated by NHS Lothian. It is situated in the upmarket Grange area of Edinburgh....
in Edinburgh, where at the same time the first Occupational Therapy Training Centre was opened.
Margaret Barr Fulton MBE 1900-1989 or Peg Fulton, as she was known, became the first occupational therapist to work in the United Kingdom in 1925. She qualified at the Philadelphia School in the United States and was appointed to the Aberdeen Royal Hospital for mental patients where she worked until her retirement in 1963. During that time, she gained an international reputation for her department and for her part in the development of both the Scottish Association (SAOT) and the World Federation of Occupational Therapists (WFOT). OT was introduced into England by Dr Elizabeth Casson
Elizabeth Casson
Elizabeth Casson was the first female doctor to graduate from the University of Bristol. She set up a residential clinic for women with mental disorders at Dorset House in Bristol in 1929...
who had visited similar establishments in America. In 1929 she established her own residential clinic in Bristol, Dorset House, for ‘women with mental disorders’, and worked as its medical director. It was here in 1930 that she founded the first school of occupational therapy in the UK, Dorset House, The Promenade, Clifton. Its first Principal was Constance Tebbit (later Owens) who returned from training as an occupational therapist in Philadelphia to take up her post. She later went on to set up the Liverpool School of Occupational Therapy. She opened Dorset House School of Occupational Therapy in Bristol in 1930. Her interest in occupational therapy continued with involvement in the Association of Occupational Therapists (AOT), established in 1936. The Second World War added impetus to the development of occupational therapy as the profession played a vital role in the rehabilitation and re-establishment of wounded soldiers into the workforce.
Why are occupational therapists interested in occupation?
Occupational therapists work from an understanding that there is a relationship between the things that people do and their health and well-beingThis is a list of some of the characteristics of occupations, as discussed in literature in the last decade.
• Occupations are activities both meaningful and purposeful to the individual performing them
• They also usually have sociocultural meaning
• Occupations fill and structure time
• They tend to be grouped according to purpose: self-care, leisure and productivity (or work)
• They support roles and participation in society
• Occupations contribute to the individual’s sense of identity
• Activities are not occupations if they are involuntary, or if they are aimed at a goal which does not involve individual meaning and participation
It has been suggested that occupation can be defined simply as ‘doing, being and becoming’, a simple definition which captures the notion of subjectively meaningful activity which results in some kind of transformation in the ‘doer’.
The word ‘occupation’ has a relatively precise usage in the fields of occupational therapy and occupational science but other disciplines (such as anthropology, psychology, leisure studies) have an interest in the human activities. It can be argued that all activities are meaningful, given that they are socially situated, symbolic constructs, and so the understanding of an activity as an occupation rests, perhaps on personal meaningfulness.