HealthJobsUK

Job overview

An innovative new role has been created for an aspiring Occupational Therapist to join our Frailty Intervention Team at SWB. Your role will focus on the promotion of independence and the proactive management of frailty in this outstanding, multi-disciplinary front door frailty team. The successful candidate will be partnering with our MDT colleagues (ACPs, junior doctors and Geriatricians) to expand our same day emergency care (SDEC) offering to frail patients who find themselves in crisis with frailty syndromes such as a sudden deterioration in mobility, falls and delirium.

We are busy preparing our team for the move to our new hospital in 2024 and you could be key in helping us to make this transition well. Our new hospital, the Midland Metropolitan University Hospital, will open next year - bringing together teams providing acute and emergency care.  At this time of both challenging and exciting change for our organisation, we are seeking to appoint an Occupational therapist to join us, facilitating the further expansion of the Frailty Intervention Team (FIT).

Main duties of the job

You will work as part of a multi-professional team within our emergency department and Same Day Emergency Care area seeing a wide range of clinical presentations within our local frail older adult population. You will need to apply holistic assessment and therapeutic intervention skills in order to:

• Contribute to the comprehensive geriatric assessment (CGA) of each patient you see
• Prevent unnecessary hospital admissions, promoting a ‘home first’ mindset
• Facilitate hospital discharges with appropriate community services follow up
• Commence therapy for frail older adults who require admission for medical care

As an integrated therapy service we comprise both physiotherapists and occupational therapists. You will work closely with geriatricians and the Advanced Clinical Practitioners, as well as your colleagues in the rapid response therapy team, who closely work with the Frailty Intervention Team. 

The successful applicant will need to work well within a dynamic team, demonstrate the ability to think critically, and use all available information to inform clinical decision making. Good communication and an eagerness to learn are vital, as well as experience in a range of core specialities, including elderly care.

Working for our organisation

Sandwell and West Birmingham NHS Trust (SWBT) is an integrated care organisation with a budget of approximately £600 million and over 7,000 staff. Diversity and social care is at the core of what we do as the Trust provides Community and Acute Services to over half a million people in an urban centre that demands massive regeneration and has substantial premature mortality. 

Our new acute hospital, the Midland Metropolitan University Hospital (MMUH), opens in 2024 and will provide care to our local population from first class, purpose-built premises. As a result, the base of this role may change to MMUH from 2024 (or beyond). If this is applicable to your role, you will be informed during the recruitment process and continuing your application with this understanding. The development of the new hospital will play an important role in the regeneration of the wider area and in improving the lives of local people and reducing health inequalities. 

We have three newly emerging strategic objectives:

1. Our People – to cultivate and sustain happy, productive and engaged staff
2. Our Patients – to be good or outstanding in everything we do
3. Our Population – to work seamlessly with our partners to improve live