Emma Kersey

What are the main responsibilities in your role?

Occupational Therapists are the people who get you back to doing the activities that you normally do every day without a problem. But patients who have significant injuries due to major trauma suddenly find themselves with a traumatic brain injury or both hands in casts or needing a wheelchair to walk due to two broken legs - OR a combination of all of these!

Those normal activities of daily life that previously were taken for granted are suddenly very hard. Through a combination of goal setting with patients, assessment, rehab, and equipment provision, Occupational Therapists look at ways to adapt tasks to allow patients to do the important things for them. As you can imagine, at times this requires a lot of creativity and problem solving!

What’s the best thing about your job?

For me, being able to help patients and their families to see the path to returning home to be reunited when they have had such a traumatic experience (and lengthy time on the Major Trauma Centre) is really rewarding.

Due to the complexity of injuries seen on the Major Trauma Centre there is always new knowledge to learn and skills to be gained. Every patient’s combination of injuries is unique and figuring out how to enable them to live independently can challenge me and keep me on my toes!

What is the most important aspect of delivering excellent patient care?

I think a team approach to meeting patients' needs is key. And I feel that we are one big major trauma team. Everyone knows their roles and together we achieve the best outcome for the patient. It helps the patients that the whole team are working towards the same aim. But it definitely helps coming to work knowing you’re surrounded by kind and caring colleagues. I feel very privileged to be a part of an amazing team of staff that work so hard to go above and beyond.  

Tell us something people are surprised to find out about you.

Being from down south originally, moving to Leeds was never meant to be a long term thing! But 10 years later I’m still here! The teams I have been fortunate enough to work alongside, the friends I’ve made, and the beauty Yorkshire has to offer has made it hard to leave!