Frontline police deserve our support

memories of when I trained to be an occupational therapist at St Loyes School of Occupational Therapy, 1965 – 1968.

I noted the sentence where it states that Dame Georgiana “is often referred to as a pioneer of occupational therapy.” I feel that this should be a pioneer of OT in Exeter/ Devon as occupational therapy was being practiced and taught in the United Kingdom much earlier than when Dame Georgiana founded St Loyes Training Centre for Cripples in 1937.

A brief history of the School of Occupational Therapy reveals that initially it was housed in the bomb damaged premises of Newstead in Matford Avenue with the first intake of students in September 1944. Soon after this, nearby Larkby was acquired which enabled the rapidly expanding school to increase its intake of students and activities.

In 1953 St Loyes College for the Training the Disabled (formerly St Loyes Training Centre for Cripples), sited at Milbrook House, off Topsham Road, acquired the nearby Fairfield House. So when larger premises were needed for the School of Occupational Therapy it moved to Milbrook House, in December 1953.

Dame Georgiana appointed Nancy Ross as the first principal of the School of Occupational Therapy in 1944 and she remained in post until her retirement in 1955. Miss Ross was followed by Miss

C R (Connie) Henson, who was awarded the MBE in 1971 for her services to the profession and in the year of her retirement, 1974, she was the first occupational therapist to be awarded an honorary degree by Exeter University. Connie Henson was followed by Katherine Ingamells, 1975 – 1984 then Dr Rita Goble, 1984 – 1994 and lastly Barbara Paul.

Throughout this time great advances were made in the training of occupational therapists, and finally the diploma course became a degree course in 1991 and in 1992 the advanced, MSc, course was introduced. In 1999, the school changed its name to St Loyes School of Health Studies. From 2003 the school became incorporated into the Faculty of Health & Social Work, School of Health Professions of the University of Plymouth. The last students at Milbrook House completed their training in 2008.

Jenepher Allen (retired occupational therapist)

Exmouth

RECENTLY the police’s South West Regional Organised Crime Unit (SWROCU) raided properties, including here in Avon and Somerset, making 31 arrests regionally and seizing £790,000 of criminal cash and 23 kilos of illegal drugs, mostly cocaine. Shockingly, they also found, locally, a number of hand guns and ammunition.

Officers never know what may be behind a door when they go through it. Their courage is helping to keep us all safe and they deserve huge praise and our strong support.

Frontline officers also need to have the right kit, training, tactics and, crucially, leaders who are properly command trained.

There is an excellent Army saying that ‘there are no bad troops, only bad commanders’. This is also true for our police.

We need to see much more co-operation between police forces and national and international security agencies.

There should be much more effort put into this and our regional crime agency needs to be reinforced and given the technical research funding to continue to give our police the edge over professional, organised criminal networks.

These gangs ruin lives – not just of the drug users but their families and in the wider communities infected by the virus of criminality which the gangs spread.

We need to see a much more vigorous effort put into the war against organised crime.

We’ve made a good start, but there is much more to be done.

Mark Shelford Conservative candidate for Police and Crime Commissioner (PCC) in Avon and Somerset