ANNUAL REVIEW master Final3a - St Vincent's University Hospital

St. Vincent’s Healthcare Group Limited - Annual Review 2007
Allied Health Professionals
Occupational Therapy Department
Overview
St. Vincent’s Public and Private Occupational Therapy Services
2007 was another busy year for the Department and the last quarter marked the merge of Saint Anthony’s
Outpatient Occupational Therapy staff with the St. Vincent’s Inpatient staff to form a main Occupational
Therapy Department situated on the first floor in the Allied Therapy Suite.
In 2007 the Occupational Therapy staff continued to review communication methods with service users.
Efforts concentrated this year on Patient Information. This resulted in the formation of two strands of patient
information leaflets; one of which includes general service information and the second provides more
detailed information on specific specialist Occupational Therapy services for example hands and plastics,
adult mental health.
Staffing
St. Vincent’s
We were fortunate to receive 1 pilot discharge facilitation post in Occupational Therapy in 2007. The aim of
this post holder is to provide urgent Occupational Therapy (OT) intervention to those patients medically stable
and only awaiting OT for discharge purposes. This resulted in our being able to access the particularly urgent
cases in a more timely manner.
Staffing remained relatively stable in the following areas
- Medicine for the Elderly
- Hands and Plastics
- Stroke and Neurology
- Pain Management
There was some internal movement within the Department namely in the areas of Orthopaedics and Pain
Management. We also had 1 successful staff member going from acting to permanent senior member of
staff and one of the staff grades acting in a senior capacity .
We also are very lucky to have recruited two senior therapists to Adult Psychiatry with strong mental health
backgrounds and another senior Occupational Therapist to Orthopaedics with a strong acute and hands
background.
Service Developments/ Activities
St. Vincent’s Occupational Therapy Department
2007 was a very active time from an Occupational Therapy perspective. We achieved our service goal of
reviewing our standards and commencing internal audits of our service.
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