Profile

Lead Occupational Therapist with over 20 years of experience working within a Mental Health and Learning Disabilities Foundation NHS trust in the North-East of England. Experience sitting on Royal College of Occupational Therapy (RCOT) regional committees. Volunteer roles within the wider Occupational Therapy online community as a member of the OTalk and AbleOTUK teams.

Experience

Current Role: Lead Occupational Therapist for Specialist Services, Durham and Tees Valley (April 2026- )

I currently work as Lead Occupational Therapist for Specialist Services across Durham and the Tees Valley within TEWV. I provide professional and clinical leadership to occupational therapy staff working across a diverse portfolio of specialist services.

My portfolio includes rehabilitation services, eating disorders, perinatal mental health and persistent physical symptoms services, alongside a number of other specialist teams. This requires me to work across different clinical pathways, geographical areas and models of service delivery, supporting occupational therapy staff working within inpatient, community and specialist multidisciplinary settings.

A key part of my role is providing professional leadership, clinical oversight and governance, while supporting the development of a skilled and confident occupational therapy workforce. I work closely with Clinical Specialist Occupational Therapists, service managers and multidisciplinary colleagues to support high-quality, occupation-focused practice and ensure that the distinct contribution of occupational therapy is understood and embedded within service delivery.

I lead and contribute to occupational therapy learning and governance arrangements across Specialist Services, supporting staff with professional development, clinical reasoning, supervision and the implementation of evidence-informed practice. I also contribute to service development, workforce planning and quality improvement, identifying opportunities to strengthen occupational therapy pathways and ensure services respond to changing population, workforce and organisational needs.

Alongside my Specialist Services portfolio, I work collaboratively with Lead Occupational Therapists and professional colleagues across TEWV to support consistency, quality and professional governance. I contribute to Trust-wide occupational therapy leadership and governance, including work relating to strategic developments and their implications for occupational therapy practice.

I represent occupational therapy within service level governance and strategic forums and contribute to wider Trust work around co-creation, workforce wellbeing, inclusion and staff experience. I am a member of the Trust Co-creation Board, which brings together people accessing services, carers and staff to strengthen co-creation and ensure lived experience informs the development of services.

I am also Co-chair of the Trust-wide Long-term Health Conditions and Disabilities Staff Network, which supports colleagues with disabilities and/or long-term health conditions. Through this role, I work with colleagues across the Trust to identify and challenge barriers, improve staff experience, promote inclusive practice and contribute to wider organisational change.

Lead Occupational Therapist for Adult Mental Health Acute and Rehabilitation Services, Teesside (Oct 2022-March 2026)

In my previous role as Lead Occupational Therapist for Adult Mental Health Acute and Rehabilitation Services in Teesside, within Tees, Esk and Wear Valleys NHS Foundation Trust (TEWV), I provided clinical leadership and line management for occupational therapy staff across acute inpatient and rehabilitation services.

This included oversight of occupational therapy provision at Roseberry Park Hospital in Middlesbrough, covering four adult acute inpatient wards and a Psychiatric Intensive Care Unit (PICU), alongside a 20-bed rehabilitation ward in Stockton and the Community Rehabilitation Team working across Teesside.

My responsibilities included clinical supervision, mentoring, staff development and governance oversight. I planned and facilitated monthly occupational therapy learning and governance networks, supporting continuing professional development and ensuring occupational therapy practice remained informed by best practice, current evidence and emerging developments within the profession.

Lead Occupational Therapist for Forensic Mental Health Services.  Band 7 TEWV NHS Trust (Secondment 2019 – 2020) 

Leadership and line management of Occupational Therapy Staff in TEWV NHS Foundation Trust secure (forensic) services. The main task was to lead on embedding a new model of OT, amalgamating two services. This included working alongside HR and service leads to manage strategic organisational change. For six months before this, I was acting clinical lead of the learning disabilities forensic occupational therapy services, with an active approach to leading strategic change alongside my substantial post (see below). Being proactive throughout this process to ensure quality during development was mainly achieved through coaching and mentoring staff.

Clinical Lead Occupational Therapist Adult Mental Health in-patient, Community and inpatient rehabilitation services across Teesside. TEWV NHS Trust (2016 – 2019) 

Leadership and line management of OT staff working in mental health in-patients and rehabilitation services, across Teesside. Quality assurance in this setting was achieved by providing supervision, planning and running monthly learning and governance networks, promoting staff CPD, and representing OT and collaboration within service-level and strategic meetings. I carried a small caseload delivering OT assessments and treatment to service users in the psychiatric intensive care unit (PICU).

Clinical Lead Occupational Therapist Adult Mental Health in-patients TEWV NHS Trust  (2011 – 2016) 

As above but only within Adult Mental Health in-patients in one hospital.

Band 6 and Band 5 Occupational Therapist (2006- 2011) 

In a range of mental health settings, TNEY NHS Trust delivers occupational therapy interventions to clients with mental health problems. Group work, assessment, goal setting and treatment. Supervision of assistants and band 5 staff.

Student Occupational Therapist 2003 -2006 Secondment by my employer to study occupational therapy at Teesside University. 

Assistant Occupational Therapist 2000-2003 Working under the supervision of occupational therapists delivering interventions within an acute mental health hospital.

Skills

Working with people managing and delivering Occupational therapy services.

Years of experience in carrying out assessments and delivering occupational interventions in both open and closed group work situations, along with individual 1:1 sessions based on engagement in activities/tasks, goal-oriented, both therapist-led and co-produced. See training & experiences (right) for models, assessment tools and outcomes that measure knowledge. Most of my clinical work has been working with service users in restrictive mental health services. I have a calm active listening approach when working with those in distress or highly volatile situations, and can read people and de-escalate situations well. Within my leadership roles, this skill has turned to managing concerns within staff groups and is utilised in wider management, coaching, development and strategic situations. This approach and skill should give me a good grounding in working with RCOT members to meet their development needs and what they may want as membership benefits. 

 Supervision, Quality Assurance and Governance. 

 Throughout my career, I have supervised students, assistants, graduates and experienced occupational therapists. Supervision is a required and important part of developing occupational therapy staff that is part of quality assurance and good governance.

RCOT has a role to play in ensuring members have both a good understanding and access to resources to promote assurance and governance of the profession. I have experience running a monthly occupational therapy learning and governance network within my current role, which both uses and develops resources to audit and improve professional quality and governance. As mentioned, I have experience of governance at a higher level, serving as a staff governor on the trust council of governors.

 Leadership and Coaching

Undertaken several leadership, development and coaching training courses/opportunities provided by my employer. This has helped me develop confidence by understanding my styles and how they may have impacted those I am leading. Within leadership, it is important to understand what motivates individuals, what strengths and limitations team members have, to get the best out of a team, skills of diplomacy, negotiation, and openness ensure any issues within team dynamics are addressed when it comes to implementing change its important that team members feel included in the process, but also that there are clear expectations and goals so that tasks are achieved and input is valued.

 Continuing Professional Development (CPD)

Throughout my career, engaging in and creating CPD opportunities for others has been an important and enjoyable part of my role. I love learning and asking questions to understand what motivates people. CPD is a standard we must meet as a requirement of the HCPC. My voluntary roles are focused on providing CPD opportunities, including running OTalk and a weekly Twitter chat about Occupational therapy. On RCOT regional committees, I have helped plan, develop and facilitate CPD events. Within my workplace, I actively encourage others to think about and record their CPD; this includes presenting on HCPC standards and ways to document continuing professional development easily, within the standards of HCPC and RCOT. 

Development of Services Achieving Positive Change

Change is inevitable; working within the NHS, there is always change. I am used to working proactively to embrace better ways of working, appropriately challenging resistance to progress and making positive improvements.  I have experience in developing, negotiating, and achieving positive change within my paid roles and in the wider occupational therapy community and local communities with voluntary roles.  

It can be difficult to achieve change. As an example, blanket restrictions have been and still are commonplace in mental health inpatient services. They can be a barrier to occupational therapy interventions. The Care Quality Commission, which regulates services, requires the removal of blanket restrictions. Good practice understands that each environment, intervention and person engaging will present different levels of unique strengths and risks. I have extensive experience carrying out risk assessments on environments, interventions, and individuals to support evidence-based practice, understand the reasons behind restricted practice, and challenge blanket restrictions that impact positive engagement in occupation and human rights to ensure a quality service.

Recruitment and ensuring Equality, Diversity and Belonging 

I have extensive experience in shortlisting, interviewing and recruiting occupational therapy staff, have sat on panels to recruit consultant psychiatrists and helped interview students for occupational therapy courses. 

I have worked with HR to ensure interview panels included those with lived experience. I have experience working with staff who need reasonable adjustments in the workplace to ensure they can fulfil their job role well. This is a particular area of interest for me, and I would like to work towards RCOT developing better guidance and wellbeing resources.

IT and Social media skills

I’m skilled in using both Mac and PC, able to interchange between both without issue. Able to confidently use most software and programs. Including Word, PowerPoint, Excel, Pages, Keynote, and Numbers. Microsoft Office: I am confident in quickly learning new software, electronic staff management software and patient record systems.

In my voluntary roles with OTalk and AbleOTUK, which are based online, mainly on social media platforms. I have gained skills in building websites and making creative videos and posts to promote & market events and topics; this includes scheduling posts to reach target audiences at key times. Use Google and Outlook sharing document systems. I have presented about and have good knowledge of how to remain professional whilst online. I’m confident in all aspects of using Skype, Zoom and MS Teams and finding resources and apps to help with thoughts and ideas.

Project management, event planning and organisation

Having a disability means I’m well organised and have to plan every aspect of my day before leaving the house. Project management and event planning are really enjoyable for me. 

I have experience in strategic oversight of service needs and have played a key role in the development and delivery of occupational therapy services; I have skills in auditing, project management, designing resources and running learning opportunities for staff, service users and RCOT members. 

In the NHS trust I work for, I have led planning ‘in-house’ conferences for OT & the wider AHP staff groups. I have planned and facilitated three co-produced Trust-wide art exhibitions of service users’ and staff’s artwork. One was held at Ripon Cathedral. In 2018, along with my manager, I planned a national conference focused on Personality Disorder & Occupational Therapy, which generated income for my trust. 

Within voluntary roles for the RCOT regional committee, I have been involved in planning, running and presenting at several learning events and conferences.