Occupational Therapy Week 2024 – Estelle Ferguson :: Northumbria Healthcare NHS Foundation Trust

Occupational Therapy Week 2024 – Estelle Ferguson

Estelle Ferguson is Northumbria Healthcare’s professional lead for Occupational Therapy. As the professional lead, Estelle is responsible for strategic management and professional leadership for occupational therapy within the trust. Her role oversees the delivery of a high-quality, safe and modern occupational therapy service for our patients.

As part of our Occupational Therapy Week celebrations, Estelle spoke to us about her career journey, the importance of professional development, and why she loves working as an occupational therapist.

When I left school, I spent time travelling with a plan to return to train as a primary school teacher. I had always loved the idea of teaching, and a career in education seemed like a logical next step. While travelling in Australia, I met a group of occupational therapists (OTs). Listening to them talk about their work intrigued me. They spoke about how OTs are trained as both physical and mental health practitioners, while also addressing the social needs of patients. This holistic approach and variety of work appealed to me.

After returning home, I started training in Coventry, completing placements in Liverpool and Birmingham. At the time, Liverpool had a very advanced occupational therapy provision that led me to work supporting young people with traumatic brain injuries. This placement confirmed that occupational therapy was the right path for me. Following university, I completed a rotational post in Leeds which helped me consolidate my skills as a mental health practitioner, as well as my physical skills in hands, burns and plastics.

At this point, I decided to move to Ireland to work for a medical equipment manufacturing company. I still had the teaching bug, and this role allowed me to train OTs in moving and handling, as well as share the hand therapy knowledge I’d gained during my time in Leeds. While this fulfilled my desire to teach, I realised that my heart was in the clinical world.  I moved back home to Newcastle and started bank work for Northumbria Healthcare in Wansbeck General Hospital’s care of the elderly wards.

Not long after starting at Wansbeck, North Tyneside General Hospital established a rheumatology service, and I joined the team to help support the set-up. This move also allowed me to become the regional lead for the National Association of Rheumatology Occupational Therapy (NAROT), delivering training sessions to OTs from across the country.

Several years later, I moved into a post in the children’s occupational therapy service in North Tyneside. This felt like a natural step, given my original career plans of becoming a primary school teacher. I worked with children under 2 years old with cerebral palsy and delivered training sessions to standardise hand function assessments in children.

In 2014, the opportunity to complete a master’s degree in Leadership in Health and Social Care, funded by Northumbria Healthcare, presented itself to me. This two-year course allowed me to develop and implement occupational therapy projects, including completing a dissertation in agile working. This focussed on introducing laptops for notes, rather than paper-based notes, improving continuity of care for patients and ease of access for staff. Completing a master’s degree opened up a new world to me. I got to meet people from different backgrounds and in other departments in the trust. It allowed me to broaden my network and create friendships across the organisation which has helped me in my role to this day. Education is something that I’m passionate about. Finding opportunities for continued professional development is fundamental to creating an empowered and knowledgeable workforce and providing the best care possible for our patients.

After completing my master’s degree, I took a fixed-term contract as a district nursing locality lead, before taking on the role of occupational therapy team lead. During this time, I received a lot of mentorship from Maureen Evans, operational services manager for community services. Maureen played a big role in my development as a manager; she is someone who I continue to look up to today.

The trust then funded me through an apprenticeship to become an operation service manager (OSM), which eventually led me to become the professional lead for occupational therapy across the trust, my current role. With Michelle Healy, senior occupational therapist, we’ve been able to bring occupational therapy services together using the tools we learned in our Flow coaching training.  The ‘OT Big room’  allows us to make joint decisions and standardise what we do across different teams. We’ve removed silo working across the discipline and brought everyone together. This has helped us to improve our recruitment and retention, allowed for a focus on training and led to the development of apprenticeships. We’re also working with other professional leads across the region to share best practices.

I love occupational therapy. It can sometimes be a discipline that flies under the radar, but it makes such a huge difference in the lives of our patients. I am often reminded of the words of an American OT professor who told me:

“As OTs we have the privilege to wake up every morning, go to work  and change people’s lives.”   

It’s an incredibly rewarding career, where you can continually grow and learn new things. I’d encourage anyone with an interest in occupational therapy to explore a role within Northumbria Healthcare; it really is the best place to grow. We’d love to have you.