Health Careers - Occupational Therapist

Occupational therapy is an exciting and varied career. It offers you the chance to make a difference, a high degree of flexibility and excellent employment prospects. You’ll work with patients every day to help improve their care and their lives.

You’ll see a huge variety of patients and help them with many different issues as an occupational therapist. Some examples of things you might work on include:

• helping someone adapt to life after major surgery
• helping people suffering from mental illness get back into everyday activities such as work or volunteering
• helping elderly people stay in their own homes by providing adaptations such as level access showers or stair lifts

Variety is one of the most exciting things about being an occupational therapist. As well as seeing different patients and conditions you’ll also have the opportunity to work in a multi-disciplinary team in a range of settings from hospitals and clinics to charities, prisons and social services departments

As well as working with individual patients and their families, occupational therapists work with groups. They work in teams with other health professionals. They may also supervise the work of occupational therapy support workers.

Entry: To become an occupational therapist you’ll need to train and study at undergraduate degree level (through a full-time course or degree apprenticeship) or if you already have a relevant degree, at Masters level through a 2-year accelerated programme. Entry requirements vary depending on where you’d like to study.