Job overview

Hours per week: 37.5         

6 month fixed term

Job share/secondment/bank contract considered

 We are looking for a senior mental health practitioner to join our team on a 6 month fixed term contract basis.

You will work in partnership with patients in the Community Hospital setting as they complete their hospital treatment; providing practical, emotional and signposting support as well as acting as a patient advocate if requested. You will work alongside Community Hospital colleagues to improve patient experience, care and wellbeing.

We will work with you to ensure that we support your personal and developmental needs, this includes a bespoke induction to ensure that you are fully prepared and supported in delivering this role.

Our aim is to work closely with our Community Hospital colleagues to deliver a pro-active, patient focussed service that delivers the right care at the right time and your work will ensure that the voice of the patient is fully recognised.

If you have excellent interpersonal skills, the desire to deliver high quality care and you are ready to use your experience to support others then please get in touch to talk through the role.

Main duties of the job

• Offer a visible, accessible presence within community hospitals in the provision of an assessment service to inpatients presenting with a broad range of mental health and psychological problems, and psychiatric illnesses. The nature of the role will also include the need for specialist assessments, treatments and interventions to older people with complex needs or enduring mental health issues.
• Deliver innovative and inspiring mental health training to support Gloucestershire Care Service priorities that enable the health and social care workforce and other priority groups to deliver high quality mental health services.
• Providing a mental health consultation, liaison and advice service throughout the hospital wards
• Delivering a range of evidence based psychosocial interventions to individual patients who have or who are suspected to have a mental health issues.
• Assisting and supporting community hospital colleagues in making decisions about treatment and care in complex situations
• Providing formal and informal clinical supervision to registered and unregistered staff
• To be a positive role model that promotes social inclusion and equitable mental and physical health for people living with mental health issues and their carers.
• Providing a communication structure between secondary mental health services, primary care and non-statutory services, as a means of ensuring the highest possible standards of patient care

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.