Occupational Therapists on The Front Line

Introduction. There is a growing focus on the need for an increased number of allied health professionals to reduce the pressure on acute hospitals through admission avoidance. There is little in the way of guidelines on how services should be delivered and a lack of evidence base demonstrating effectiveness. Methods. An audit has been carried out by the occupational therapy team in the Emergency Department to capture the total number of referrals to the occupational therapy service in the Emergency Department at Royal Berkshire Hospital and to capture discharge decisions made following occupational therapy input. Results. The occupational therapy team in the Emergency Department focuses particularly on admission avoidance using a home first approach to prevent patients from being admitted to acute wards. The results showed that the service was beneficial regarding both the number of referrals and the utilisation of various discharge destinations from the Emergency Department. Conclusion. The report has identified several areas for further research by the same team and implications for the wider literature base. The hope is that this report would highlight the role of occupational therapists working in the emergency department at Royal Berkshire Hospital and encourage the completion of further research in this area of practice.