Band 6 Specialist Practitioner Op Courage

Avon And Wiltshire Mental Health Partnership Nhs Trust; Weston-super-Mare; Hybrid; GBP 30,000 - 40,000; Full time

Job summary

A mental health service provider is seeking a Specialist Practitioner for a crucial role in supporting veterans' mental health in the Plymouth, Cornwall, and Devon area. The position involves providing tailored liaison and advice to veterans navigating mental health services. Candidates should have relevant qualifications and skills in assessing complex needs while demonstrating empathy and effective communication. This role offers a hybrid working model, combining online and face-to-face interactions to ensure comprehensive care.

Benefits

Supportive team environment

Commitment to diversity and inclusion

Qualifications

• Skilled in engaging with ex-British Armed Forces and assessing their mental health needs.
• Ability to provide education and support to families and carers.
• Competent in delivering person-centred mental health care.

Responsibilities

• Provide liaison and support services for veterans.
• Coordinate care from referral to discharge.
• Deliver nursing care through various means, including face-to-face and online.

Skills

Engagement skills

Clinical assessment

Empathy

Communication

Advocacy

Education

Relevant professional qualification in healthcare

Job description

We are looking for a Specialist Practitioner to join OpCourage South West, covering the Plymouth, Cornwall and Devon area. Are you passionate about ensuring that our ex-British Armed Forces (Veterans) have excellent mental health care? Are you driven and professionally skilled in engaging, assessing and helping to navigate Veterans that sometimes can be difficult-to-engage, complex and risky? Working alongside our Veterans and their families ensuring they receive timely and appropriate support, often supporting to navigate other systems and services. Are you determined and resourceful to help support the service as part of the wider NHS OP Courage services, including our urgent and treatment pathway colleagues. Are you a team player, initiative-taking and robust? This is an exciting opportunity to join OP Courage, bringing together all the three elements of NHS mental healthcare for our Veterans. Together we can go further to ensuring that the NHS fulfils its commitment and picks up and responds to the specialist needs of Veterans and their families. You will work within the team, covering a designated geographical area.

The core purpose of this role is to provide liaison, advice, and support services for veterans, supporting the coordination of care from referral to the service through to discharge.

You will work in a hybrid way, using a mix of online platforms, telephone, and face-to-face contacts as required. The team meets at regular intervals, and full support will be provided to develop the role alongside colleagues.

Responsibilities

• Work autonomously within the parameters of the role, leading on the implementation and delivery of quality nursing care. Contribute to physical,, social, recreational, and spiritual care in a recovery-focused way through therapeutic engagement and activities, and take steps to address any issues that arise.
• Demonstrate highly developed skills in assessing and interpreting complex patient/client needs, e.g., clinical assessment of complex health and social needs, interpretation of vital signs, and related physical health assessments.
• Deliver person-centred nursing care via face-to-face, online, or telephone contact, in line with the person's choice, risk, and/or clinical need.
• Facilitate access to services such as housing, employment, education, and substance misuse support, advocating for patients' needs and preferences.
• Provide education and support to families and carers to enhance understanding and involvement in the patient's recovery journey.
• Coordinate and evaluate collaborative patient-centred care; gather feedback and improve Personal Wellbeing Plans with the multi-disciplinary team (MDT) and system partners. Liaise and work positively with members of the MDT and partner organisations.
• Advocate for service users' needs and rights within Trust policy, encouraging and empowering service users to take an optimum level of responsibility for their individual programme of care.
• Communicate complex and sensitive clinical information to patients, families, and carers in a clear, compassionate, and professional manner. Ensure that all information regarding Personal Wellbeing Plans, treatment options, and health conditions is accurate, timely, and presented in an accessible format.
• Comply with and implement local and Trust policies and procedures regarding appropriate communication.
• Deliver specific interventions in line with the treatment pathway, including for complex service users. Provide care that is evidence-based, reflecting current best practice and research (including NICE guidelines), and demonstrate clinical excellence high standards of professional practice to other staff.
• Demonstrate empathy, active listening, and reassurance when supporting individuals through difficult or emotionally charged situations. Adapt communication approaches to meet the individual needs of patients, including those with sensory impairments, cognitive challenges, language barriers, or disabilities.
• Proactively support patients in engaging with mental health and related community services, promoting recovery, independence, and social inclusion. Identify and address barriers to engagement, including stigma, accessibility, cultural factors, and individual anxieties or mistrust of services.
• Advocate for service users' needs and rights within Trust policy, encouraging and empowering service users to take an optimum level of responsibility for their individual programme of care.

About AWP

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 care. AWP is committed to support and create a positive research and evidence-based environment and culture, which can have a beneficial impact on everyone who works for the organisation and the care we provide to those who use our services. 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.