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Job summary

Main area
CMHT Reading
Grade
Band 7
Contract
Permanent
Hours
Full time - 37.5 hours per week
Job ref
371-MHS449-A
Employer
Berkshire Healthcare NHS Foundation Trust
Employer type
NHS
Site
Prospect Park Hospital
Town
Reading
Salary
£43,742 - £50,056 per annum
Salary period
Yearly
Closing
08/08/2024 23:59
Interview date
14/08/2024

Employer heading

Berkshire Healthcare NHS Foundation Trust logo

Senior Mental Health Practitioner

Band 7

Job overview

Are you passionate about making a difference and enjoy working as part of a larger team? Are you eager to use your clinical skills to provide excellent care and progress your career? 

Applicants will need to be enthusiastic and able to work flexibly and reliably to contribute to the delivery of outstanding care to our patients. 

As an Advanced Mental Health Practitioner, with the Short Term Team, you will have responsibility for the line management of students and junior staff, undertaking their annual appraisals, PDP’s and proactively supporting their development review cycle. 

You should have the ability to think calmly and logically under pressure and have a positive attitude to maintaining high standards of work at all times and be able to demonstrate excellent communication skills.  

You will be able to work unsupervised, using your own initiative, but also to be able to work as a part of the wider team and be able to work in multiagency partnership.  

Accuracy and attention to details is essential for this post with a good level of competency in using Microsoft applications. Strong organizational and leadership skills are essential.  

Our service operates five days a week, not including bank holidays and is offering full, part time and hybrid flexible working opportunities. 

Main duties of the job

  • You will be responsible for the formulation, implementation and evaluation of a care plan for a designated number of patients who may present with significant complexity within the multidisciplinary team 

  • You will also be responsible for devising a risk and safety plan with each individual patient managing their risks in close partnership with wider team 

  • You will be conducting assessments and reviews at Place within One Team. You will be contributing to establishment of the specialist offer for the service users assessed at Place.  

  • You will apply up to date professional and other knowledge to ensure any options of care for individuals is evidenced base and informed by theoretical an practical learning and experience.

  • You will work closely with colleagues in specialist community mental health services to ensure smooth transitions between teams and services and facilitate an ‘easy in, easy out’ approach to improve access to evidence-based interventions. 

Working for our organisation

Berkshire Healthcare NHS Foundation Trust is a specialist mental health and community health services trust. Rated ‘outstanding’ by the CQC, we’re committed to providing the best possible care to people across Berkshire. 

We value diversity and are proud to be a Stonewall Top 100 Employer. We work hard to create an inclusive environment where you’ll be supported by friendly and professional colleagues to flourish.

Our values at Berkshire Healthcare:

  • Caring for and about you is our top priority
  • Committed to providing good quality, safe services
  • Working Together with you to develop innovative solutions

We welcome people who share these values to come and work for us.

Benefits of working for us include:

  • Flexible working options to support work-life balance
  • 27 days’ annual leave rising with service + opportunity to buy and sell
  • Generous NHS pension scheme
  • Excellent learning and career development opportunities
  • ‘Cycle to Work’ and car leasing scheme including electric vehicles
  • Access to a range of wellbeing tools and services
  • Discounts at hundreds of popular retailers and restaurants
  • Staff networks for race, diversity, disabilities, the environment and armed forces community to support equality
  • Generous maternity, paternity, adoption and special leave
  • Free parking across Trust sites

If you share our values and would like to come and work for us, please submit your application as soon as possible as we'll occasionally close roles early that have a high number of applications.

Detailed job description and main responsibilities

The “must haves” for this role: 

1. Qualified Psychiatric Nurse, Social Worker, Occupational Therapist with +2 years post registration experience preferred. 

2. Promote, monitor and maintain best practice in health, safety and security. 

3. Ability to form positive therapeutic relationships with service users, carers, and other professional bodies. 

4. Ability to use technology to underpin professional practice. 

For further information about the role, please see attached job description and person specification. We strongly encourage you to review how you meet the criteria in the person specification and write about this point-by-point in your supporting statement for the best chance of being shortlisted. For further application tips- see the help with your application document attached once you click apply.

If you’re someone who shares our passion for excellence and care, join us and let’s be outstanding together.  

We welcome a conversation about flexibility and any other questions you may have. Please don’t hesitate to call: Joanna Jelonek on 01189605612 or email [email protected] who’ll be delighted to help. 

We are committed to equal opportunities and welcome applications from all sections of the community, regardless of any protected characteristics. Reasonable adjustments will be made for disabled applicants where required. 

Person specification

Education/Qualifications/Training

Essential criteria
  • Qualified Psychiatric Nurse, Social Worker, Occupational Therapist with +2-year post registration experienced preferred.
  • Competent IT skills and the ability to navigate around various systems and software packages (such as MS Outlook, MS Office, MS TEAMs and the internet).

Continuous Professional Development

Essential criteria
  • KSF Core 1 – Communication: Level 3: Excellent verbal and written skills including the ability to develop and maintain communication with people about difficult matters and/or in difficult situation
  • KSF Core 1 – Communication: Level 3: Ability to form positive therapeutic relationship with service users, carers, and other professional bodies
  • KSF Core 1 – Communication: Level 3: Ability to use technology to underpin professional practice
  • KSF Core 1 – Communication: Level 3: Ability to provide written clinical report autonomously
  • KSF Core 1 – Communication: Level 3: Negotiation skills when dealing with contentious situation
  • KSF Core 2 – Personal and People Development: Level 3: Develop oneself and others in areas of practice
  • KSF Core 3 – Health & Safety: Level 3: Promote, monitor, and maintain best practice in health, safety, and security
  • KSF Core 4 – Service Improvement: Level 2: Appraise, interpret, and apply suggestions, recommendation, and directive to improve services
  • KSF Core 5 – Quality: Level 3: Contribute to improving quality
  • KSF Core 6 – Equality & Diversity: Level 2: Support equality and value diversity
  • KSF HWB1 – Promotion of Health & Wellbeing: Level 3 / 4: Plan, develop, implement, and evaluate programmes to promote health and wellbeing and prevent adverse effects on health and wellbeing
  • KSF HWB1 – Promotion of Health & Wellbeing: Level 3 / 4: Promote health and wellbeing and prevent adverse effects on health and wellbeing through contributing to the development, implementation, and evaluation of related policies
  • KSF HWB2 – Protection of Health & Wellbeing: Level 1 / 2: Input, store and provide data and information. Gather, analyse, and report a limited range of data and information
  • KSF IK 1 – Information Processing: Level 3: Promote, monitor, and maintain best practice in health, safety, and security

Previous Experience

Essential criteria
  • Previous knowledge and experience of working in the community and with service users who have complex mental health needs.
  • Knowledge and experience of applying evidence-based strategies and psycho-social interventions to effectively engage with service users and their carers.
  • Experience of formulating risk assessments.
  • Experience of working with mental health services (or able to demonstrate transferable skills).
  • Experience of working effectively in a multi-disciplinary team and multi-agency environment.
Desirable criteria
  • Experience of clinically supervising junior and unqualified staff and mentoring students.

Knowledge, Skills & Abilities

Essential criteria
  • Specialist knowledge acquired through training in a specialised discipline.
  • Excellent knowledge and understanding of the health and social care systems and operating frameworks, clinical observations and the Mental Health Act.
  • A clear understanding of complex needs support issues such as homelessness, substance misuse and offending.
  • Knowledge of safeguarding protocols.
  • Knowledge and understanding of how to deal with challenging individuals.
  • Effective and competent interpersonal, influencing, communication, observation, and reporting skills.
  • Strong organisational skills and the ability to analyse situations and be able to make the right decisions.
  • Able to empathise, be supportive and sensitive to the needs of others as well as being able to cope with distressing circumstances.
  • Ability to cope in pressurised environment and apply practical problem-solving skills in everyday situations.
  • Ability to manage risk.
  • Demonstration of Psychological awareness of others strengths and weaknesses.
  • Demonstration of an ability to have flexibility in their coping style and an awareness to see problems from a different perspective.
  • Ability to work effectively in a team, work on own initiative, work unsupervised and manage own workload.
Desirable criteria
  • Demonstrate an ability to maintain clear boundaries.

Additional Requirements

Essential criteria
  • Car user.

Employer certification / accreditation badges

Apprenticeships logoDisability confident employerCarer confident logo, the employers for carers confident schemeCare quality commission - OutstandingStonewall equality policy. Equality and justice for lesbians, gay men, bisexual and trans people.Armed Forces Covenant

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

Apply online now

Further details / informal visits contact

Name
Joanna Jelonek
Job title
CPN
Email address
[email protected]
Telephone number
01189605612
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