I was feeling quite incensed myself by an incident involving my Mum being contacted by her GP practice. The person, who did not make their name or job role very clear , telephoned my Mum saying she needed to make an appointment for a review. My mum has decided despite well out of date hip (20 years) and knee replacements that she wants no other medical intervention – but would like the pills that continue to help with her pain and her blood pressure stable. She has discussed all this in the past with her GP in great detail. The person on the end of the phone was very unfriendly when my Mum tried to explain she would rather not be prodded and poked and their reply was ‘well we might withdraw your medication in that case’. My Mum was very upset and said to them ‘That sounds like a threat to me’. When mum told me about this I asked what was the job of the person who called – ‘Oh I don’t know they didn’t say or I didn’t catch it’. Anyway whoever it was very very officious and grumpy.
So when I read George Rooks blog about a very disappointing OT visit – I thought I look forward to chewing the cud about this at our next facilitators meeting to try and come up with some solutions. To be empowered as ‘patients’. You can read George’s blog here: https://georgerook51.wordpress.com/2021/07/13/notanot/
In a nutshell George’s GP had recommended and referred George to the Occupational Therapy (OT) team as he has been experiencing some balance issues. In saying ‘I will refer you to an OT’ should the GP have explained a bit more the kind of things an OT can help with, what kind of things that you can expect from somebody in that particular profession?
In the past we have also had discussions about understanding what Speech and Language Therapists can do too. Not just speaking that’s for sure!
So as a receiver of services or a referrer of a service maybe we all need a greater understanding of what is possible.
Should we as recipients of a service know what to expect and take greater ownership of identifying where we may benefit from support.
Should we as referrers or assessors of needs have a greater understanding of what professions offer and then explain that to the person before we refer them? This highlights issues of informed consent or not as well.
George didn’t really know who this person was who came to see him? Was it an OT or was it an assistant? We need to be better at identifying who we are and leave a note of our name, number and profession for any follow up conversations.
As facilitators we may be in a very strong position to recognise or consider that somebody in the group may benefit from the support of an Allied Health professional – such as OT, Physio, Speech and Language Therapists etc.
The language that is used can be very confusing and the teams where different professional sit can be even more confusing.
A new facilitator from Derby wrote to me after our meetings and said ‘I got alot out of today’s session due to the fact I am going to do my first OT referral tomorrow. I feel I am armed with a bit more knowledge on what questions to ask the person I am referring about their needs.’
We have decided to explore a DEEP guide to explain and explore roles of people, like OTs, who may be able to support you. In the Knowledge is Power booklets there are a very brief summary of certain roles and we considered expanding this for the English version which will be produced by the Autumn.
The next facilitators meeting is on Wednesday July 21st.
Wendy and Tracy from Lifting the Cloud will be doing a 10/15 minute presentation about their garden project. The rest of the session will be discussing the content for the July/August edition of Our DEEP News.
