The focus of Allied Health Professionals Day this year is on celebrating the next generation of people training to join the second largest UK healthcare workforce and the life-changing impacts they will have on patient care and health in their careers.

There are 14 different disciplines in the AHP family and Oxford Health has eight of them embedded in its mental health, children’s services, specialised services and community health settings across Oxfordshire, Buckinghamshire, Wiltshire, Bath and North East Somerset.

These include podiatrists, dietitians, occupational therapists, paramedics, physiotherapists, art therapists, music therapists and speech and language therapists.

This year Oxford Health has given placements to 243 student AHPs – up 58% on the previous year.

Jana Allababidi is a third year Occupational Therapy student currently on placement in the Warneford hospital on the Adult Mental Health Unit.

She said: “I’m super excited being on this placement because it’s my first mental health one and it’s so different to my past physical health placements. It’s so wonderful seeing the theories you learn in university unfold in real life, it really makes all those long nights of studying worth it! I’m so proud of being a future AHP!”  

To celebrate AHP Day Jana has come up with some facts about Occupational Therapy – see how many you already knew.

• Occupational Therapy helps people of all ages to do the things they want and need to do through the therapeutic use of daily activities. 
• OT began to thrive during World War I and World War II where the US Military began recognizing the benefit of using “reconstruction aids”. 
• Occupational therapy was founded by three men and three women in 1917, three years before women were able to vote!  

• Occupational therapists treat the whole person by using holistic approaches combined with scientific evidence.  
• OTs work everywhere! Schools, hospitals, homes, prisons, rehab facilities, acute care, and academia!