Job summary
- Main area
- Occupational Therapy
- Grade
- Band 7
- Contract
- Permanent
- Hours
- Full time - 37.5 hours per week (1 day per week based at Gloucester Royal Hospital (GRH))
- Job ref
- 327-26-227
- Employer
- Gloucestershire Health and Care NHS Foundation Trust
- Employer type
- NHS
- Site
- Springbank Community Centre
- Town
- Cheltenham,
- Salary
- £49,387 - £56,515 per annum
- Salary period
- Yearly
- Closing
- 13/04/2026 23:59
- Interview date
- 28/04/2026
Employer heading
CYPS Highly Specialist Occupational Therapist
Band 7
We love what we do and we think you will, too!
At Gloucestershire Health and Care NHS Foundation Trust (GHC), we provide joined-up mental health, physical health and learning disability services to people of all ages across Gloucestershire. We run community hospitals and provide care and support in people’s own homes and in a range of other locations across the county.
We are on a mission to enable people to live the best life they can and we have a vision to work together to provide outstanding care. We put people at the heart of our services, focusing on personalised care by asking ‘what matters to you’.
We’re passionate about making sure that everyone can contribute to achieving our mission and we are continually working to support healthy and happy high-quality teams in all areas of the Trust.
Our application process aims to understand each candidates knowledge, skills and experience. We have found that candidates that use AI to generate their answers can lack specificity and fail to address key criteria outlined in the job description.
It is really important to personalise your application to convey your individual skills, knowledge, and experiences effectively and for us to understand why you are applying for this role with GHC. We discourage over reliance on AI-generated applications as it will lessen your chances of success in securing an interview with us .
Job overview
Children and Young People's Occupational Therapy Services is part of an Integrated Children's Directorate providing services for children and young people with challenges to their physical health and also those with learning disability and autistic spectrum conditions within health, social care, education and the local acute hospital.
We are seeking an experienced Occupational Therapist to provide strong clinical leadership within CYPS, ensuring high‑quality, evidence‑based and child‑centred practice.Main duties of the job
Clinical leadership and case management
- Provide clinical leadership and expertise within the service to ensure service delivery reflects best/evidence-based practice as well as embracing continuous learning and improvement.
- Provide highly specialised occupational therapy assessment and therapy to the neonatal caseload at GRH.
- Independently manage a specialised clinical caseload of children/young people and their families, involving providing clinical assessment, advice and the delivery of treatment programmes for children and young people with complex physical healthcare needs
- Adopt corporate, clinical governance and best practice principles within service delivery
- Contribute to ongoing service improvement initiatives
- Demonstrating a commitment that the “voice” and lived experience of the child and young person is at the heart of all CYPS decision making and clinical care planning.
The post holder will work in collaboration with CYPS Senior Leads to deliver safe, efficient, high quality and effective services by providing strong clinical leadership and ensuring alignment of OT service priorities with the Directorate and Trust priorities and values.
Working for our organisation
We have a skilled and dedicated workforce of over 5000 colleagues working in a diverse range of services over 55 sites and within people’s homes. We strive to enable a welcoming workplace culture that builds and celebrates civility, inclusivity and diversity, while providing a sense of belonging and trust.
Annual staff surveys, regular Pulse surveys and other engagement opportunities provide our people with lots of opportunity to tell us about their experiences of working with us. In the latest staff survey, 61% of colleagues gave us their views. It was great to hear that:
- 72% of colleagues would recommend the Trust as a place to work, ranking us 1st for Provider Trusts in the South West region on this question.
- 76% would recommend the standard of care provided in our services if a friend or relative needed treatment, also ranking us 1st in the South West region.
- 81% said that care of patients and service users is the Trust’s priority, compared with an average in comparable NHS Trusts in England of 64%.
This high-level overview shows we are in a healthy position, with higher scores than average for comparable organisations, alongside a great response rate, indicating good staff engagement. However, we also know we have plenty of room for improvement in many areas. To that end, we continue to prioritise and invest in our commitment to genuinely becoming a Great Place to Work with consistent top-quartile performance in the annual staff survey and Pulse surveys.
Detailed job description and main responsibilities
Clinical Case Management/Care Coordination
Provide a range of highly specialist assessment and treatment interventions for children and young people (0-18yrs) and their families/carers with the designated team. Provision will be in accordance to the application of a range of profession specific models of clinical practice. This will include:
- Providing clinical assessment, consultation, advice and the delivery of intervention programmes for children and young people with a diverse range of physical healthcare needs.
- Care planning will utilise a wide range of treatment skills and options for use in both the home, community and school setting alongside using a personalised and coproduction approach when working with families, parents and carers
- Undertaking comprehensive and accurate assessment of children and young people (including diagnostic where required), using investigative, analytical and advanced clinical reasoning skills. This includes consideration and identification of safeguarding needs and taking further action where required
- Demonstrating a comprehensive range of profession based and specialist core clinical skills and competencies including effective clinical decision making and an ability to clearly articulate clinical rationale when requested
- Providing specialist clinical risk assessments & complex risk management planning as part of routine clinical work
- Clinical care will take a trauma-informed approach with knowledge and understanding of Adverse Child Experience (ACES) that may be impacting on presenting needs
- Undertaking accountability, responsibility and independent managing a clinical caseload of children/young people and their families.
- When allocated, the clinician is responsible case holder and has overall responsibility and accountability as well as a duty of care for assessment, treatment and review of the child/young person/family until the point of onward referral or discharge
- Providing clinical leadership regarding referral screening, assessing and formulating personalised care planning
Typically, this postholder will work with children and young people who are highly vulnerable or have complex needs where joint working with multi-agency partners across Gloucestershire is key. - Expected roles, responsibilities and activity/performance expectations are outlined within a personal (team based) job plan. This job plan will be reviewed regularly and may be adjusted to meet team or service led requirements
Clinical leadership
Band 7 clinical leadership provides:
- Accountability and assurance that the team is continuously striving to provide high quality, safe and effective services that are evidence based and fully adhere to corporate, clinical governance and expected standards of practice across all aspects of clinical delivery, including the effective and safe use of resources and equipment
Providing clinical services that are aligned to commissioned and service expectations
The Trust is required to work in line with the Government’s UK Visa and Immigration Rules and Regulations. For more information about sponsorship for certain roles, please visit - https://www.gov.uk/browse/visas-immigration/work-visas
Person specification
Qualifications
Essential criteria
- Neonatal experience
- Diploma/degree in Occupational Therapy Professional registration: State Registered Occupational Therapist and be registered with the Health & Care Professions Council (HCPC)
- Evidence of formal post graduate learning within a relevant CYPS field or skill
Desirable criteria
- Profession specific additional qualifications (i.e LD, nurse prescriber, DBT, AMHP )
Experience
Essential criteria
- Demonstrate clinical expertise and high levels of competency regarding providing care coordination/ managing caseloads including highly vulnerable children and young people with complex needs
- Demonstrate extensive experience and expertise regarding delivering evidence based/ best practice clinical interventions within childrens community healthcare setting
- Relevant training/ qualification in neonatal assessment and therapy
Desirable criteria
- Demonstrate extensive experience and expertise regarding delivering evidence based/ best practice clinical interventions within a children's ward/hospital setting
Employer certification / accreditation badges
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Applicant requirements
You must have appropriate UK professional registration.
This post is subject to the Rehabilitation of Offenders Act 1974 (Exceptions) Order 1975 (Amendment) (England and Wales) Order 2020 and it will be necessary for a submission for Disclosure to be made to the Disclosure and Barring Service.
Documents to download
Further details / informal visits contact
- Name
- Jo McKenna
- Job title
- Head of Service for CYPS OT & Team Lead
- Email address
- [email protected]
- Telephone number
- 0300 421 8927
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