Occupational therapist Lyndsay Beck explains why her team are working with the Nottinghamshire Fire and Rescue Service, to help older people stay safe and independent.
I am an occupational therapist at Nottinghamshire Healthcare and I work with older adults with mental health needs, such as depression and dementia. An occupational therapist’s role is to help people to carry on with the activities which they need and want to do.
It may seem like an unlikely combination, but my colleagues and I have been working closely with Nottinghamshire Fire and Rescue Service. You may be wondering why? It’s because often the older people we work with – who may be isolated and have poor mental and/or physical health - are the types of people who are most likely to be affected by fire. Fires related to heating and cooking appliances are the most common in Nottinghamshire.
I have always been very concerned about the impact of fire and burns have on people. When I was an occupational therapy student many years ago, I worked in an area dealing with burns and saw the impact that house fires had on adults and children. I realised how much fire not only destroys peoples’ homes and belongings, but also scars them emotionally and physically. It also affects how they manage their day to day living.
Working together with the Fire Service has been really successful, because our two teams bring different things to the table. The fire service staff are experts on fire (as you would expect!), and we know a lot about people’s physical and mental health and how they manage everyday tasks. Together, we can find ways to make people safer.
The Fire Service is trained to eliminate fire risks, but this isn’t always possible. For instance, if the person really enjoys cooking and this is an important role for them, it’s not practical to ask them to stop. We have been working together to find other solutions. The person might be able to use other equipment, which still reduces the fire risk but also allows them to live their life in the way they want to.
We’ve been giving training to the Fire Service staff, to help them gain a better understanding of conditions such as dementia. The Fire Service have also benefitted from sharing occupational therapy students with our service. The students learn about the risk of fires, whilst the Fire Service benefits from the final year students’ knowledge of people’s health needs and how this impacts on how people manage their everyday activities.
We are starting to plan to have some more occupational therapy students working with the Fire Service and have done a stand at the University of Derby, raising awareness of how both our services can complement each other. We want to help people to live safely, but also to live according to their choices and wishes.
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