The Elizabeth Casson Trust COVID 19 Practice Development Grant is providing Leeds based Occupational Therapists with funding to design an app. Partnering with digital agency HMA and ETHOS Ltd the therapists are building an online practice guide.
Why now?
Clinical practice has seen an unprecedented leap in the use of a wide range of digital tools during the pandemic and this app will provide an easy to use web-based guide for therapists, to ensure people accessing services, use online tools that are clinically safe, have been evaluated and are going to help meet individuals needs and goals.
Who’s involved?
This clinical onboarding guide for therapists, known as COG-OT involves experts in the field of NHS safety engineering of software from ETHOS Ltd, and award-winning app development company HMA. The project is led by Alicia Ridout, an Occupational Therapist and Clinical Safety Officer who is a Fellow of the Faculty of Clinical Informatics, and working as an independent Occupational Therapist. Occupational Therapists, Richard Gurney and Gemma Wormald from Leeds and York Partnership NHS Foundation Trust, are providing clinical expertise to the digital development team as core collaborators.
The app is being co-designed with Occupational Therapists from across the UK, with a focus on Leeds in the initial stages, and will be available free of charge post-launch in early October 2020.
Where can I find out more?
The team will be sharing updates through local and national networks, social and professional media. The team hope the proof of concept project will be a catalyst for other AHPs to adopt the approach, support personal and practice development, and focus effective digital interventions during personalised care and support planning.
The team hope to launch the app on National AHP day on 14th October, initially to defined groups of Occupational Therapists followed by wider deployment in the late autumn. Watch this space!
HMA Director Emma Casimir, said, “It’s great for this project to have support from the team at ETHOS Ltd and the depth of the knowledge and expertise of all the practitioners involved will guide us to ensure we are developing a digital tool that is safe, effective and useful ”.
