Home, community, hospital

Kingston and Richmond NHS Foundation Trust offers a range of fantastic opportunities to grow your career across both hospital and community settings in south London. Whether you're looking to build new skills or take your experience to the next level, we are uniquely placed to provide the right environment to support your professional development. With colleagues working in people’s homes, in community clinics, and in our two hospitals, we have an outstanding breadth of knowledge and experience to draw from.

Our commitment to exceptional care is reflected in being the first trust of our kind in London to achieve an ‘Outstanding’ rating from the CQC for both overall quality and leadership. We exist to provide the best possible care for our patients and we do that by giving our colleagues what they need to be their best at work. We have won numerous awards from the HSJ and Nursing Times for the way we support our colleagues across all our services.

We are proud to be recognised for our outstanding cancer care, children's services, pioneering surgical teams, and exceptional rehabilitation services. Our maternity services have been rated the "Best in London" by women surveyed by the Care Quality Commission (CQC), with parents travelling to Kingston to take advantage of our considerable experience and expertise.

Our Trust values

These words are important reminders, but it’s our behaviours that tell people who we are. We expect all colleagues to bring our values to life in their work.

Job overview

An exciting opportunity has arisen for a Band 6 Speech and Language Therapist to join our experienced and dynamic Community Neuro Rehabilitation Team (CNRT) which includes the Stroke Early Supported Discharge (ESD) service. This post is based in the heart of Richmond.

You will be part of a dedicated multi-disciplinary team providing a rehabilitation service to neurologically impaired adults living in Richmond, covering communication and dysphagia.  You will also assess and manage patients with a non-neurological diagnosis for dysphagia. You will be involved with training and education for patients, carers and care home staff.

The team is based in a modern and well-resourced rehabilitation facility. You will see patients in their homes and the outpatient clinic. You will work independently and as part of a team of experienced Speech and Language Therapists. The wider team also includes neuro specialist Nursing, Psychology, Dietetics, Physiotherapy, Occupational Therapy and Rehab Assistants. 

The successful applicant will have previously worked in the NHS and will bring to this post experience of working in neuro rehabilitation with post graduate training in the management of dysphagia. With the support of senior clinicians you will have the opportunity to further develop your communication and dysphagia skills within this specialist team. The Trust actively facilitates continuing professional development opportunities in pursuing clinical excellence.

Main duties of the job

You will provide effective, evidenced-based speech and language therapy to adults with a long term or newly acquired neurological condition and presenting with communication difficulties.  This will include aphasia, dysarthria, apraxia and cognitive communication difficulties.

You will provide assessment and management for adults, with or without a neurological condition, presenting with oro-pharyngeal dysphagia.  You will refer patients for instrumental assessment as needed.

You will be seeing patients in the community, in their own homes or as outpatients.  You will hold responsibility for a caseload and work without direct supervision.  This will include the assessment, differential diagnosis, treatment and management of acquired adult swallowing and communication disorders. 

There is a robust supervision framework and opportunities to access training and development.  You will work  closely with other members of the multi-disciplinary team to agree and support working on patient-centred goals, and make internal referrals.  You will be encouraged to participate in quality improvement projects for the wider team.

Working for our organisation

Trust Values

Kingston and Richmond Foundation Trust (KRST) has four key values and we want to employ and work with people who share these values and demonstrate behaviours that support them. They are: 

• Quality– Focus on prevention and safety, with a culture of continuous learning to deliver an outstanding patient and staff experience.
• People - promote health and wellbeing, actively engage with people who use our services and support people to achieve their potential
• Co-ordinated patient centred care - continually adapt our services so they meet the needs of our population 
• Sustainable - use resources effectively and secure opportunities to grow and expand