Assistant Practitioner | Mersey Care NHS Foundation Trust

Mersey Care NHS Foundation Trust; Sefton; On-site; GBP 40,000 - 50,000; Full time

Job summary

Mersey Care NHS Foundation Trust invites applications for a Prison Pathway Team role. The post involves providing clinical input and intervention to patients and prisoners, under supervision, to support safe transfers between prison and health services and onward remission where appropriate.

The team operates across prison and health sites with an office base at Indigo building, Maghull Health Park, and requires travel to various sites.

Qualifications

• Experience of working with patients/clients within a secure care facility.

Responsibilities

• Provide clinical input and interventions to a range of patients and prisoners under supervision.
• Support safe, timely transfers and remissions between prison and health services.
• Contribute to health promotion, coping strategies and transitional support for service users.

Job description

Mersey Care NHS Foundation Trust is the provider of the Prison Pathway Team, a service jointly commissioned by the PROSPECT Lead Provider Collaborative and NHS England Health and Justice Commissioning.

The Prison Pathway Team plays a key role in supporting safe, timely, and clinically appropriate transfers and remissions between prison and health services. The service ensures that individuals who require specialist inpatient care are transferred promptly into the health system and, where appropriate, supports their remission back to the prison setting once hospital‑level care is no longer required.

Through this work, the service contributes to improved capacity and demand management across services, enhances patient experience, delivers greater value, and supports targeted action to reduce identified health inequalities.

The Prison Pathway Team was initially established as a two‑year pilot and has demonstrated clear effectiveness and impact, resulting in confirmation of permanent funding.

The team have an office base in Indigo building at Maghull Health Park but you will be required to travel to other health and prison sites to deliver the service.

Experience of working with patients / clients within a secure care facility is a requirement of the post holder.

You will provide clinical input and intervention to a range of patients and prisoners, this will be done under the supervision of a qualified Prison Pathway Practitioner. There will be a focus on health promotion, coping strategies and transitional support.

You will be joining a dedicated team with team members having high levels of skill, passion and enthusiasm (and humour!) and are committed to ensuring the on-going successful development of the service and the opportunities it provides for our population.

Mersey Care is one of the largest trusts providing physical health and mental health services in the North West, serving more than 1.4 million people across our region and are also commissioned for services that cover the North West, North Wales and the Midlands.

We offer specialist inpatient and community services that support physical and mental health and specialist inpatient mental health, learning disability, addiction and brain injury services. Mersey Care is one of only three trusts in the UK that offer high secure mental health facilities.

At the heart of all we do is our commitment to ‘perfect care’ – care that is safe, effective, positively experienced, timely, equitable and efficient. We support our staff to do the best job they can and work alongside service users, their families, and carers to design and develop future services together. We’re currently delivering a programme of organisational and service transformation to significantly improve the quality of the services we provide and safely reduce cost as we do so.

Flexible working requests will be considered for all roles.

Please refer to the attached job description and person specification for full detailsand requirementsof the role.

This advert closes on Thursday 22 Oct 2026