Hosts: Dr Kim Stuart (Associate Professor Coventry University) and Dr Nikki Daniels Head of Communities and Connections RCOT
The Coventry University and University of Salford are working together to co-lead a commissioned programme by HEE to develop a curricula framework for Enhanced Clinical Practice. As a team across the two universities, we are working to develop 7 AHP curricula for Occupational Therapy, Dietetics, Physiotherapy, Podiatry, Prosthetists and Orthotists, Diagnostic Radiography and Operating Department Practitioners.
I this week’s #Otalk, we want to explore your understanding of Enhanced Clinical Practice, and how it can benefit us as a profession.
Background
The overall aim of the Enhanced Clinical Practitioner curricula framework is to produce proficient and effective occupational therapists who are confident in their profession specific knowledge, skills, and behaviours but at ease in working in complex multi professional teams across health and social care sectors. At an enhanced level of practice, we are developing confident, creative, critical thinkers, agile in their mindset, solution focused leaders who are secure in their professional identity. We are not describing a new level of practice or specific role here but capturing and focusing on the mid-career development of occupational therapists. To provide a structured programme of development that enables occupational therapists to thrive and grow in their roles, responding to the ever-changing challenges and opportunities in practice across all four pillars of our professional life.
Whilst the curricula framework is centred around the Enhanced Clinical Practitioner Apprenticeship, it is much more than this and aims to capture the level of practice and programme of development we can create for occupational therapists. Thinking about how this level of practice can be described across the variety of roles and sectors that occupational therapists work including both statutory, independent and voluntary sectors is essential to ensure that we all have access to high quality professional development.
In developing the curricula framework, the ambition is to create an open framework approach that is sustainable and scalable for delivery, inclusive of all allied health professions. Continuous Professional Development (CPD) may be an individual-led or an employer-led activity that meets the requirements of the workplace, supports employers’ aspirations for skilled and productive employees and facilitates personal growth and career progression of the individual. Adopting an open framework curriculum for Enhanced Practice enables the provision to be responsive to the needs of the workforce at a national level whilst being flexible in delivery at a local system level in collaboration with other universities and their sector partners.
By using an innovative open framework approach we can widen access to high quality professional development that can be tailored to the individual profession as well as supporting collaborative learning across diverse professions and disciplines to meet the needs of the individual and employer. The aim is to provide occupational therapists with a diverse curriculum that is relevant to their profession, speciality, and interests, seeking to celebrate the depth of practice within health and social care, retaining our highly valued and skilled workforce.
There have been several key reports published by HEE that set out the career framework, you can access them here
Enhanced practice | Health Education England (hee.nhs.uk)
To do this we need your input, so the focus of the #OTalk is for us as a professional community to come together and explore Enhanced Level Practice, what does it mean to you. What do you recognise as the unique features of occupational therapy practice at this level and how do we support occupational therapist career development across all four pillars of practice at this level.
The questions that we would like to explore are
- Have you heard about enhanced practice? If so tell us what you know about it.
- The aim of ECP curricula framework is to produce proficient and effective OTs, confident in their profession specific knowledge, skills, and behaviours. How do you think this could benefit us as a profession?
- What do you think should be delivered for occupational therapy professional development within this level of practice across all four pillars that is UNIQUE to occupational therapy?
- What areas of practice do you think should be prioritised initially in supporting professional development at an enhanced level within occupational therapy?
- Would this be attractive to you as part of your professional development? Why/Why not?
OTalk 