Job overview

This is an exciting opportunity for a Dysphagia Specialist Speech and Language Therapist to join the Children’s Therapies Team in North West Kent. This Band 7 role encompasses both leadership and clinical work in the community with children and families aged 0-19 years. The Children’s Therapies Team is an integrated therapies team providing Speech and Language Therapy, Occupational Therapy, Physiotherapy, Specialist Nurse Advisors and Care Co-ordinators to children and families within KCHFT.

You will be part of an innovative, cohesive and enthusiastic team of dysphagia therapists who have reimagined KCHFT’s dysphagia service. As part of our county-wide approach to the management of children with dysphagia, you will be able to offer virtual appointments to families across Kent, as well as locality-based face to face sessions.
You will provide support and supervision to other clinicians in the team managing children with dysphagia and support competencies for therapists completing Dysphagia specialist training. You will access and lead on fortnightly group supervision and CPD sessions, whilst building links with external stakeholders. You will work with the other Dysphagia leads to monitor, review and develop pathways to ensure the service is able to offer safe, efficient and effective assessment and intervention in a timely way.

Main duties of the job

• Supporting and leading on the Dysphagia pathways across Kent
• Leading on service policy and clinical care pathways across KCHFT for dysphagia
• Ensuring team members are working to agreed care pathway within dysphagia
• Providing effective supervision, training and support to SLTs to enhance their CPD
• Reporting and advising on development requirements in dysphagia to colleagues, Professional Leads, Team Leads, Locality Clinical Manager and Head of Service.
• Participating in reflective practice and on going learning within these clinical fields
• Carrying out delegated line management of staff
• Managing a complex /specialist clinical caseload across 0-19 years

The role will be a hybrid model of working (virtual and face to face).
We pride ourselves on the support and opportunities offered to staff at all stages in their career including; regular meetings with a line manager, access to supervision; in house and external training. We offer regular clinical governance days where all localities come together to share knowledge, skills and CPD experiences.

Working for our organisation

Rated ‘outstanding’ by the CQC, we’ve got a passion for delivering high standards of patient care and excellent services to improve the health of our communities. To do this we need outstanding people who share our values compassionate Aspirational Responsive Excellent

We know a commitment to equity, diversity and inclusion leads to better patient care and a happier workforce. We pride ourselves in being diverse and welcome applications from people with varied backgrounds, perspectives and experiences

We ask for information about your protected characteristics on our application forms. This isn’t visible to anyone involved with shortlisting or interviewing you, except when you choose to be considered under the guaranteed interview scheme due to disability. Short listers will see two ticks alongside your application to ensure they apply the principles of the scheme to your submission

The data we collect helps us to ensure we are attracting diversity in our applicants, that all our colleagues have equitable access to career opportunities and supports us on our journey to being a Great Place to Work

As a flexible working friendly organisation, we want you to be able to work in a way that is best for us, for our patients and for you. Talk to us about a flexible working arrangement that won’t involve sacrificing time for personal interests or family commitments. We’ll support you to work flexibly in a way that will suits us both

See where you can go with KCHFT career pathways