Band 3 Healthcare Support Worker

Avon And Wiltshire Mental Health Partnership Nhs Trust; Swindon; Hybrid; GBP 20,000 - 25,000; Full time

Job summary

A leading mental health service provider in Swindon is looking for a support worker to provide comprehensive care for inpatients. Responsibilities include personal care, assisting with daily needs, and working within a multi-disciplinary team. The ideal candidate should have excellent communication skills and a commitment to personal development. This role operates 24/7, requiring flexibility. Join a progressive organization that champions diversity and inclusion in its workforce.

Benefits

Training and support for personal development

Unsocial enhancements in addition to basic pay

Qualifications

• Ability to demonstrate effective teamwork in a multi-disciplinary setting.
• Willingness to participate in a 24/7 shift rota.
• Essential skills in delivering person-centred care.

Responsibilities

• Support individuals with nutrition, personal care, and wellbeing.
• Assist service users with financial and accommodation issues.
• Engage service users in discussions about their experiences.

Skills

Excellent communication skills

Experience in multi-disciplinary teamwork

Commitment to personal development

Job description

We are looking for a motivated and passionate individual to join our team in the challenging role of a support worker. This role offers the opportunity to provide a comprehensive package of care to inpatients from day one.

Working as a member of a multi-disciplinary team, you will be able to take advantage of their skills and experience to create an individualised and specialised programme to help patients on their road to recovery.

Applewood House is an Acute Psychiatric admission ward based in Swindon. As an acute inpatient service, we provide high quality, multi-disciplinary, multi-skilled treatment to people whose health care needs cannot be managed in their own homes due to their level of complexity, intensity and unpredictability. The ward is currently an all male ward with 15 beds for adults with a wide range of mental health conditions.

To support you in your role, you will be allocated a supervisor to offer guidance and direction as well as a buddy to settle you into Applewood House and support you through your role.

This role is on a ward that operates on a 24/7 shift basis and applicants will need to be happy to participate in the 24 hours, 7 day a week rota to meet the needs of the people who use our services. Working closely with our multi disciplinary teams, supporting service users, you will receive training to complete the NHS Care Certificate and request a Level 3 Healthcare apprenticeship. If you have some experience of caring work already that would be great – but if not, we will support you to develop the skills and experience needed.

Staff will qualify for unsocial enhancements in addition to their basic pay.

You will have excellent communication skills. We expect you to be able to demonstrate how you have worked effectively in a multi-disciplinary team setting. You will need to demonstrate your commitment to personal development. Your attitude is crucial. At Applewood House, we deliver person-centred care. We believe that with our help, people can improve their mental health, to promote independence. To deliver high quality care and recovery interventions for service users within designated clinical areas, in collaboration with, and under the indirect supervision of, registered care staff.

Responsibilities

• Supporting individuals with fluids and nutrition, physical wellbeing, and personal care.
• Assisting service users with financial or accommodation issues.
• Escorting or accompanying service users for planned periods of leave on hospital grounds and in the community to facilitate social inclusion.
• Encouraging service users to talk about their experiences in one-to-one or group discussions.
• Help maintain a clean, well‑organised, safe and therapeutic environment that meets the needs of service users, carers and colleagues, and support registered care staff to perform standardised environmental assessments to monitor and improve the care setting.
• Deliver psychosocially‑informed one-to-one and group interventions aiming to positively impact service users' cognitive and emotional wellbeing.
• Work as part of a multi-disciplinary team. Assume lead or link roles on core practice initiatives and priorities (e.g. Essence of Care, Safewards and carer engagement) under the supervision of registered staff.
• Integrate areas of personal interest with clinical practice to enhance the diversity of the team's provision of care.
• Practical planned care, and directly participate in the development of recovery-focused interventions that address service users' and carers' needs and preferences.
• Proactively review, record and assess the on-going impacts of such interventions.
• Participate in the on-going care planning, CPA and risk assessment processes in collaboration with service users, their carers, and other members of the care team and contribute to all aspects of clinical record keeping.
• Maintain a basic working understanding of both the Mental Health Act (1983) and Mental Capacity Act (2005), and any other relevant legislation, as required by mandatory and statutory training (MaST).
• Adhere to AWP's Code of Conduct for unregistered practitioners; promote and embed it through peer support and supervision to junior, temporary and newly appointed Health Care Support Workers.
• Observe and record interactions with service users and carers both verbally and in writing via clinical records and staff handovers.
• Deliver a wide range of fundamental care interventions using evidence‑based clinical tools, monitor and improve physical health and personal wellbeing and model a high standard of dignity, respect and candour.
• Engage in reflective practice to maintain and promote ongoing clinical practice.
• Promote and enhance a positive learning culture, being proactive in the induction, orientation and support of junior, temporary and newly appointed Health Care Support Workers, seeking to embed core care values into practice.

Commitment to Diversity

We are proud to be fostering a diverse workforce that reflects our communities. A key commitment to this is improving staff representation from Black, Asian and Minority Ethnic communities, those from the LGBTQ+ communities, people with 'lived-experience' of mental health conditions and people living with disabilities – we are a ‘Disability Confident Employer’ offering a guaranteed interview to Disabled applicants who meet the essential criteria. This includes people with a variety of disabilities and neurodivergent conditions (for example autism, ADHD, sensory, physical and learning disabilities).

We encourage applications from people who wish to work on a flexible basis, recognising that flexibility may mean a range of different working patterns and hours. We do our utmost to work with our staff to meet their needs and the needs of our service users.

About Our Organisation

We are AWP (Avon and Wiltshire Mental Health Partnership NHS Trust): a diverse organisation with over 5,000 dedicated staff providing inpatient and community-based mental health care. We provide services from a range of locations to approximately 1.8 million people living in Bath and North East Somerset (B NES), Bristol, North Somerset, South Gloucestershire, Swindon, across the county of Wiltshire and in parts of Dorset.

Our outstanding people promote mental health and wellbeing. The expertise and resources within AWP are dedicated to a person-centred approach for those who use our services and for all employees. We recognise that happy and fulfilled employees give better care.

At AWP we actively encourage applicants from all backgrounds; we are particularly keen to encourage applications from people from Black, Asian and minority ethnic backgrounds, those with disabilities and from the LGBTQ+ community. We want people to bring their unique blend of experiences, backgrounds, perspectives and knowledge to AWP, as diversity makes us stronger.