Living Lab 2B: Community Occupational Therapy Pathway
Project impact
Reduces waiting times and improves access to support by enabling earlier intervention and self-management for people with low to moderate needs
Frees up clinical capacity by shifting administrative tasks to digital workflows, allowing Occupational Therapists to focus on direct patient care.
Improves service user experience through clearer information, better triage, and more transparent access to the right level of care at the right time.
Development and testing of a digital enabled Community Occupational Therapy (OT) pathway using digital tools such as AskSARA to support self-assessment, improve triage and reduce waiting times.
This project is developing a digitally enabled Community Occupational Therapy Pathway in Moray to reduce long waiting times and improve access to support. By introducing tools like AskSARA for self-assessment and digital triage, it aims to streamline referrals, support self-management, and create a more efficient, person-centred service.
Summary
The project has potential to deliver significant benefits across the health and care system, including:
• Earlier intervention and prevention: Enables individuals to access advice and solutions sooner, reducing deterioration in functional ability.
• Improved service efficiency: Digital triage and structured data capture reduce administrative burden and streamline referral processes.
• Better use of workforce capacity: Occupational Therapists can spend more time delivering clinical care rather than administrative tasks.
• Enhanced user experience: Clearer information, improved access routes, and self-management tools empower service users.
• System level value: Supports integration, data sharing, and more consistent decision making across services.
Impact & value
Extensive stakeholder engagement has taken place with Community Occupational Therapy teams, partner organisations, and service users to better understand current needs, challenges, and opportunities. Initial research, including an online survey, explored digital readiness, barriers to adoption, and areas where technology could add value.
This work identified several key system challenges, including rising demand for services, workforce constraints, long waiting times, and inefficient referral processes. In response, early testing of digital tools such as AskSARA demonstrated strong potential to support self-management and improve access to information and advice. These insights informed the development and piloting of a redesigned pathway that incorporates digital triage and a red/amber/green prioritisation model to support more effective referral management and resource allocation.
Evaluation is continuing, with a focus on safety, usability, and outcomes to guide further refinement and future implementation.
Progress to date
Next steps
Partners
