Social Services Health Occupational TherapistS

The group aims are:

• to improve understanding of the different cultures and pressures in health and social services
• to provide a 'seamless' service on discharge by agreeing consistent operational procedures

History

The group called "SSHOTS" (Social Services and Health Occupational Therapy Managers) is a working party across the whole of Nottinghamshire and Nottingham City. The group of managers is 24 strong and was originally set up in 1997 to develop effective communication across entrenched health and social services barriers. At that time there were frequent breakdowns in communications between hospital occupational therapists (OTs) and those in social services - particularly over assessment and provision of equipment for hospital discharge. This was despite a policy agreed in 1995 for hospital OTs to provide equipment for short term needs. It was clear by 1997 that whether OTs were working in health or social services, all were feeling swamped with large workloads, rising demand and scarce resources. Therefore joint home visits prior to discharge were becoming a rare event.

Coverage

The group represents all 7 District Offices of the Nottinghamshire County Council Social Services Departments (SSD) plus the whole of the Nottingham City occupational therapy service as well as all the NHS Trusts throughout the City and County. Therefore the group now represents about 300 occupational therapy staff in settings from a large teaching hospital to small community hospitals, community health teams and all the social services OT teams.

Products and outcomes

• Protocol for referral to Social Services Occupational Therapy from Health Occupational Therapists
• Shared Learning Directory A listing of occupational therapy resources in Nottinghamshire and the City of Nottingham
• Shared Induction Policy for occupational therapy staff in health and social services across the City of Nottingham and Nottinghamshire
• OT Interagency Incident Reporting Form. For reporting and investigating challanges/problems occuring during the discharge process between OT agencies

© Social Services Health Occupational TherapistS (SSHOTS) 1999

Page last updated 27 October 2003 by R Tatlow