Job overview

At Oxleas NHS Foundation Trust, we offer a wide range of NHS healthcare services to people living in South-East London and to people in prison across England.  Our wide array of services includes community health care, such as district nursing and speech and language therapy, care for people with learning disabilities and mental health such as psychiatry, nursing and therapies. Oxleas is a great place to work.  It has been recognised as one of the Top 10 Best Places to Work 2023 by the Sunday Times amongst very big employers. Our staff survey results show that we are in the Top 5 in England and the highest in London for staff experience amongst similar trusts.

The post holder will provide highly specialist assessment, diagnosis and intervention to children and young people with speech, language, and communication needs attending Shenstone Special School.  This will include children with Autism Spectrum Disorder (ASD), Learning Disabilities (LD) including Profound and Multiple Learning Disabilities (PMLD), and Multisensory Impairment (MSI).  Shenstone School is an all-through (special primary and secondary) school, operating across 3 sites, for children and young people who have severe and/or complex learning difficulties.  

Main duties of the job

Shenstone has an established Communication Team consisting of Speech and Language Therapists and school-employed communication assistants.  The post holder will coordinate how the team continues to deliver high quality and high impact support across the school, with support from both the Special School Coordinator and the school leadership team.

The post holder will also act as a resource within the Speech and Language Therapy service in the areas of Learning Disabilities, MSI, AAC and Autism and will maintain a high level of specialist knowledge in these areas.  The post holder will work closely with the clinical lead for AAC within the service as and when needed. 

The post holder will provide highly specialist second opinions to Speech and Language Therapists and education staff and be an integral member of the multidisciplinary team providing an integrated care pathway.  The post holder will work as part of a team with class-teachers, learning support assistants, head teacher, therapists, and the child/young person’s family / carers.   

The post holder will participate in the co-ordination, development and delivery of training programmes and information for school staff, parents and carers and colleagues in health and education and will contribute to Trust, service, and professional wide initiatives.

Working for our organisation

Oxleas offers a wide range of NHS healthcare services to people in community and secure environment settings. Our services include community health care such as district nursing and speech and language therapy, care for people with learning disabilities and mental health care such as psychiatry, nursing and therapies. Our multidisciplinary teams look after people of all ages and we work in close partnership with other parts of the NHS, local councils and the voluntary sector and through our new provider collaboratives. Our 4,300 members of staff work in many different settings including hospitals, clinics, prisons, secure hospitals, children’s centres, schools and people’s homes.

We have over 125 sites in a variety of locations in the South of England. In London we operate within the Boroughs of Bexley, Bromley Greenwich and into Kent. We manage hospital sites including Queen Mary’s Hospital, Sidcup and Memorial Hospital, Woolwich, as well as the Bracton Centre, our medium secure unit for people with mental health needs. We are the largest NHS provider of prison health services providing healthcare to prisons within Devon, Dorset, Bristol, Wiltshire and Gloucestershire, Kent and South London. We are proud of the care we provide and our people.

Our purpose is to improve lives by providing the best possible care to our patients and their families.  This is strengthened by our new values:

• We’re Kind
• We’re Fair
• We Listen
• We Care