OTnews March 2011
Welcome to the March 2011 issue of OTnews
Last month’s issue carried a special centre-page pull out; the COT manifesto for the Welsh Assembly, Scottish Parliament and Northern Ireland Assembly elections, to be held in May this year. Its three key statements are around enabling independent living at home, enabling independent living at work or in education and enabling independent living at leisure.
This issue it’s the turn of the Scottish National Party, Scottish Conservatives, Scottish Liberal Democrats and Scottish Labour to argue their visions for health and social care. Jackie Baillie MSP, Scottish Labour’s shadow health secretary, says that a Labour government in Scotland will ‘bring forward the most radical change in elderly care since the creation of the National Health Service in 1948’. She believes that by ‘joining together health and social care, we will establish a new national care service focused on the wellbeing of our older people and sustaining them in their communities’.
Ross Finnie, Liberal Democrat Health spokesman, says they want to ‘rebalance the relationship between acute care and community care, allowing more people to see the health professionals they need in their community’. He proposes to place a duty on Community Health Partnerships (CHPs) to develop health and wellbeing strategies and promote the involvement of patients and carers in the decisions about the provision of their health services.
Murdo Fraser, Conservative shadow cabinet secretary for health and wellbeing, pledges to protect health spending in Scotland. He says the Conservatives are ‘committed to protecting our front-line services in the NHS’, that the NHS should be ‘measured by outcomes, not inputs’ and that ‘by doing things differently we can find money to be reinvested in front-line services’.
Finally, Michael Matheson, SNP, Scottish Parliament health committee member and former OT, says they have pledged to protect the NHS budget for the next four years. He says they would like to take forward the work carried out by Highland Council over the last two years, by introducing a ‘lead commissioning’ model that ‘provides greater integration of services without the need for massive structural upheaval’.
- GPs, commissioning and change for England - What can you do to show commissioners that OT is indispensible?
- What occupational therapists can offer GP services
- Journey towards practice development - Ann Norris explains how one hospice has gained accreditation
- The 'do's' and 'don'ts' of presenting at conference - Practical advice for budding public speakers
- Complementary professions? Occupational therapy and occupational Health in the emergency services - OT and occupational health in the emergency services
- What is so important about mental capacity? - Julie Carr negotiates the minefield of assessing capacity
- A new way of looking at creative activities and health - Locating creative activities through local voluntary arts groups
- Engaging clients in a day service - Developing OT assessment groups for older people's day services
- Volunteering overseas - Working with COPE in Lao PDR; one OT's experience
- The benefits of re-establishing group work - Andrew Mickel on education for support workers at Langside
