About me
“I’m Katrina, Occupational Therapist for The Good Care Group. I joined The Good Care Group in July 2023, and before this worked for the NHS and in social care for six years. I became an occupational therapist after seeing my mum work as a nurse and wanted to make a similar impact in people’s lives. I enjoy problem solving and helping people to continue to do the things that matter to them.
“As an occupational therapist for The Good Care Group, I complete assessments to support clients with complex moving and handling, mobility and transfer needs. I also provide falls prevention advice and support. I work within the Specialist Care Service alongside our Consultant Admiral Nurse, Dr Jane Pritchard and Registered General Nurse, Ashley McCarthy, to support our clients with more complex and acute care needs. My role involves working closely with care managers and carers to ensure that our clients receive the most appropriate level of care to meet their needs.
“I enjoy problem solving and feel there is no greater satisfaction than working together with clients to overcome a challenge so that they can feel greater independence and achieve the things that are most important to them.
“In my free time, you will most likely find me walking my Labrador in the countryside or out running.”
Qualifications and experience
Qualifications and experience
Katrina graduated from Queen Margaret University in 2017 with BSc (Hons) in Occupational Therapy. Whilst studying, she worked as an hourly domiciliary carer, providing care and support to people living across the Scottish Borders. She provided hands-on support with personal care, meal preparation and medication administration, alongside home help services.
On graduating, she worked in the NHS in Merseyside for five years. She completed her band 5 rotations within the acute hospital, gaining experience with a wide range of conditions. She worked on the medical, surgical and orthopaedic wards and spent some time working on a complex discharge planning unit.
Katrina then moved over to the Department of Medicine for the Elderly and became a senior occupational therapist. Whilst in this role, she primarily worked on an inpatient ward for men with dementia and assessed patients with a number of different conditions, such as Parkinson’s, dementia, fragility and falls. She worked closely with local safeguarding teams and a multidisciplinary team consisting of doctors, nurses, social workers and other allied health professionals. She completed physical and cognitive assessments to provide a holistic needs assessment when considering support and equipment.
Katrina then moved over to adult social care and became a specialist occupational therapist. Working in a long-term conditions team, she completed holistic assessments in accordance with the Care Act and alongside the Disability Facilities Grant, resulting in equipment provision, referral for major and minor adaptations or onward referrals to alternative agencies. Whilst in this role, she worked with clients with a number of long-term medical conditions such as Parkinson’s, dementia and motor neurone disease. Many of the service users had multifactorial conditions which resulted in them having an impairment in their function.
Katrina supported the ‘Moving with Dignity’ project whilst in this role, which aimed to use equipment to reduce the number of carers required to support a service user at home. This increased the dignity and privacy of the service user, whilst also aiming to reduce the delays in provision of care and reduce overall care costs.
Katrina then became a specialist occupational therapist at the Community Equipment Store. It was her role to supervise the repair, reassessment and replacement of specialist equipment for the community. She specialised in equipment assessments and provision and worked closely with the equipment companies and providers to ensure that any equipment issues were identified, assessed and resolved quickly to ensure a positive outcome for the equipment provider and the client. Katrina developed a specialist interest in complex equipment, manual handling, specialist seating and daily living aids.
Katrina then moved to East Berkshire, and worked within the care home support team. She specialised in postural management and positioning. She worked with the care homes across the area to provide training to the care home staff and support them with assessments for their complex residents. She provided training to staff on postural management and contractures and completed complex moving and handling and positioning assessments. This was a newly established role, so Katrina took responsibility for shaping the occupational therapy provision in this team. She also completed a number of courses and seminars on postural management and contractures, including attending Jo De Clercq’s training on Therapeutic Positioning and Dementia Care and completing ‘Simple Stuff Matters’ Postural Care – Cradle to Grave.
As a member of the Health and Care Professions Council, Katrina adheres to their standards of conduct, ethics and proficiency and follows national guidelines and local policy to ensure her practice is relevant, up to date and evidence based. She is also a member of The Royal College of Occupational Therapists.
