Are Occupational Therapists Marketing their Services Effectively to the Fundholding General Practitioner?

Abstract

Given the 1990 General Practitioner (GP) Contract and the 1992 Health of the Nation white paper, the hypothesis was put forward that, by utilising the services of occupational therapists, fundholding GPs would prevent standards falling as their workload increased, thereby enabling them to utilise their time more effectively. A questionnaire was designed to test this hypothesis. Results showed that, although the majority of GPs were interested in using most of the services offered, they were unaware of the varying roles of the occupational therapist and were, as a result, unable to recognise the benefits of such services to themselves. Results also showed the need for more effective marketing strategies to be implemented in order that fundholding GPs are made aware of the occupational therapist's changing role in community care.

Effect of Marketing Occupational Therapy Services on Client-Centredness in Nigeria

“…This is in line with the works of [13, [15][16][17][18]. OT practitioners strongly affirmed that OT marketing efforts should be majorly directed towards clients (persons, families, groups, communities, organisations, populations), physicians and professionals allied to medicine, donors (governmental agencies, and nongovernmental organisations), and community services (police, fire services, prisons, schools) which was supported by [15,17,19]. Respondents also affirmed that business managers, developers, and investors; policy makers (regulatory bodies, ministries, legislators, executives); insurance companies; and attorneys are targets for marketing OT efforts which corroborated the works of [19].…”

“…Based on the analysed data, the findings show that a majority of the respondents supported marketing strategies like building relationships with physicians and professionals allied to medicine, improving quality of service and professionalism, digital marketing/internet (website, e-mail, WhatsApp, LinkedIn, Twitter, Facebook, Instagram), promotions (advertising, personal selling, free service, public relations), and relationship marketing (developing longterm relationships with clients) can be adopted for marketing OT. This is in line with the works of [13, [15][16][17][18]. OT practitioners strongly affirmed that OT marketing efforts should be majorly directed towards clients (persons, families, groups, communities, organisations, populations), physicians and professionals allied to medicine, donors (governmental agencies, and nongovernmental organisations), and community services (police, fire services, prisons, schools) which was supported by [15,17,19].…”