Difficulties in recruiting staff to National Health Service (NHS) facilities have been noted in the literature and, among occupational therapists, this problem is particularly acute in urban areas. One inner-city NHS trust responded to this difficulty by establishing a rotation scheme that allowed basic grade occupational therapists to gain experience in a range of community-based posts. There appear to be few precedents for such a scheme and the experience of newly qualified staff in non-traditional settings is rarely documented in the literature. The present study sought to evaluate the basic grade community rotation scheme in terms of the postholders' perceptions. A semi-structured questionnaire was administered which elicited their views on role clarity, multidisciplinary working practices, access to professional support, levels of occupational stress and job satisfaction. The findings indicate a number of benefits from the community rotation scheme, such as the development of autonomous practice and the varied nature of the work. Disadvantages were also evident, such as a lack of role clarity and the tendency for generic working practices to emerge within multidisciplinary teams. The findings are considered in relation to the literature and the implications for further investigation are discussed. It is concluded that further work is needed in this area to facilitate the recruitment and retention of current and future practitioners.

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Occupational therapists are concerned with how people perform across the various daily activities that are important to them. It is recognised within occupational therapy that the presence of illness or disability might affect this performance.In order to assess how a person complete a task and identify what is making it unsatisfying, the occupational therapist will observe the person engaged in familiar activities. The Assessment of Motor and Process Skills (AMPS) provides a standardised framework within which to make these observations. We have found the AMPS to be useful in assessing the performance of people with learning disabilities generally, as well as in assessing those with additional mental illness.We recognise that occupational therapy assessment plays a useful part in a wider multi‐professional, multi‐agency approach to identifying and managing the needs of people with learning disabilities.