Occupational Therapy Service

The occupational therapy service helps Southwark's disabled residents to live safely and independently in their own homes.

We can help you if you are

• A child or an adult with a permanent and substantial physical disability
• An elderly person who has problems with daily living tasks because of your age
• Someone with a progressive condition where our involvement will help maintain your independence for longer and will improve your care
• Looking after a person with a disability
• Someone with a mental health problem or a learning disability that means you have practical difficulties with everyday living tasks 

If your disability is mild or temporary we can offer advice and information on specialist suppliers and other services that could assist.

How we can help

We will speak with you to find out about the difficulties you are having with every day living tasks. If you are being looked after by family or carers we will also check whether they are having any difficulties in caring for you. The next step is to work out ways to help you overcome or cope with the difficulties.

We will do this by

• Providing advice
• Looking at ways an everyday task can be done differently
• Lending you a specialist piece of equipment
• Recommending alterations or changes to your home
• Referring you to other services

Applying for help

We need to be told about the difficulties you are having with everyday living tasks

• You can tell us yourself by telephone or by filling in a form which we can send you
• A family member, friend or carer can contact us on your behalf or fill in the form for you
• Any other professional who knows you and is aware of your difficulties you are having with everyday living tasks can contact us

When you contact us we will take your personal details and information about the difficulties you are having. We will then contact you directly (usually by telephone within two working days) to ask you more specific questions about your difficulties and generally check on how you are managing everyday living tasks.

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From the information you give us, we will apply our eligibility criteria (pdf 335kb) to decide whether or not we can help you and how quickly we can do so. We aim to see the people who have the greatest risk to their health, safety and independence first.

If we are unable to help

We will tell you straight away if we are unable to help you and if we can, we will pass your request onto another service that may be able to help you.

How we assess you on managing everyday living tasks

We will contact you to arrange a time to visit. You are welcome to invite your family, friend or carer to be present. We can arrange for an interpreter to be present during the visit if English is not your first language.

We will assess how you are managing everyday living tasks by

• Asking you to describe and show us how you are managing everyday tasks. For example how you manage getting in and out of your home, going to the toilet, washing, preparing a hot drink etc.
• Talking about how your medical condition and home environment affect your ability to manage independently
• Finding out what you think your difficulties are and what you would like to achieve
• Finding out about any difficulties your family or carer may be having in looking after you

Contact us

North of the borough - Borough, Bankside, Walworth, Bermondsey, Rotherhithe

Occupational therapy (north)
Tel: 0845 600 1287 
ot.helpdesk@southwark.gov.uk
Woodmill Building
Neckinger
London
SE16 3QN

South of the borough - Dulwich, Peckham, Camberwell

Occupational therapy (south)
Tel: 0845 600 1287
ot.helpdesk@southwark.gov.uk
1st Floor
Dulwich Community Hospital
East Dulwich Grove
London
SE22 8PT