Occupational Therapy in Crisis Resolution Home Treatment teams

We are the occupational therapy team working within the Crisis Resolution Home Treatment (CRHT) Teams in Luton & Bedfordshire.

We work with adults who are under the care of the crisis team whose current mental health challenges are impacting on their ability to manage everyday tasks. We are part of a multidisciplinary team comprised of psychiatrists, nurses, psychologists, pharmacists and support workers who work intensively with an individual to support them through their current difficulties, with the aim of avoiding hospital admission or supporting the transition back to the community after an admission.

The service is county wide with one CRHT covering Luton and South Bedfordshire and one CRHT covering Bedford and Central Bedfordshire. The occupational therapist works across both teams.

What do we do?

Our role as the occupational therapy team in CRHT is to identify the current barriers preventing people from engaging in activities of daily living and to support early implementation of basic routines and maintaining a daily structure to enable individuals to make the first steps to their recovery.

The crisis resolution and home treatment (CRHT) service offers an alternative to hospital admission. We recognise the benefits of a service user remaining in their own home to support their mental health recovery.

We focus on identifying the factors causing the mental health crisis and the barriers preventing an individual's daily functioning for example shopping, cooking, attending activities in their local communities and taking care of their environment, with a view to helping them to create a routine to be able to manage these tasks more independently. As clinicians with a focus on activities of daily living, we are uniquely placed to identify the factors that have precipitated the individual’s current and past challenges and make recommendations that can reduce the likelihood of further crises.

How do we work

We work flexibly and responsively to the needs of the service users and team. We attend the morning and afternoon huddles with the team daily to identify and triage those with the greatest need for occupational therapy input.

Our occupational therapy assessment and interventions lead on to signposting to services the individual can connect with in the community, referrals to OT in community mental health teams community physiotherapy and OT for support with mobility.

We offer a range of interventions to support graded activities, goal planning, skill building and occupational balance.

What Our Service Users Say

“(OT Technician) has been great with positive ideas to improve my mood and how the use of daily activity sheets can get me to see the positive things I have done during the day.” – March 2025

“Thank you (OT & OT Technician). Thank you so much for finally actually doing this for me…I feel I trust you and I feel this shows you care. Thank you for being so good at your job.” – January 2025

"home visits were invaluable, especially the support from OT" – December 2024