Clinical Specialist Nurse - Islington CMHT

NHS; London; On-site; GBP 42,000 - 51,000; Full time

Job summary

The NHS is seeking a Clinical Specialist Nurse for the Camden and Islington Community Mental Health Teams. This role involves supporting older adults with mental illness and dementia, requiring excellent communication skills and the ability to work autonomously. The position offers opportunities for professional development and involvement in quality improvement projects.

Benefits

Continuous training and development

Opportunities for Quality Improvement projects

Qualifications

• Experience in caring for older people with mental health problems.
• Understanding of the Mental Health Act and Mental Capacity Act.
• Ability to work independently and supervise team members.

Responsibilities

• Responsible for a caseload of older adults requiring secondary mental health care.
• Collaborate with service users and their families for treatment.
• Liaise with GPs and other health services.

Skills

Communication

Organizational Skills

Autonomy

Team Leadership

Risk Assessment

Education

Registered Mental Health Nurse

Current registration with relevant professional body

Minimum 2 years post qualifying experience

Level 2 Safeguarding certificates

Mentorship or teaching certificate

Job description

Clinical Specialist Nurse - Islington CMHT

We are the Camden and Islington Community Mental Health Teams (CMHTs), servicing the London Boroughs of Camden and Islington, and we are passionate about supporting older adults with mental illness and/or people affected by dementia.

We're seeking to recruit a nurse who shares our passion to strive towards excellence in older people's mental health and dementia care, with a keen interest in service development and quality improvement and who encourages a workplace based on our Trust's culture pillars where staff and service users feel safe, valued and are empowered.

Main duties of the job

We are a busy service and caseloads are reflective of this. This requires you to have good organisational skills and an ability to work independently. The role involves visiting patients at home and you therefore must be able to get around Camden and Islington using Public Transport and/or walking/cycling.

You'll be able to demonstrate experience in working with older people with severe mental illness and/or dementia, and have excellent communication and interpersonal skills. You should have an understanding of the wider health and social care system. Being computer literate is a must as you will be using an Electronic Patient Record and MS Word, Teams and other software.

If you have the right values for the North London Foundation Trust you will be supported by a programme of continuous training and development. The position offers opportunities to get involved in Quality Improvement projects and to become champion/lead in specific area relevant to the role. You will also be responsible for supervising other members of the team.

About us

We're keen to recruit someone with the right values and behaviours who can help us deliver our Trust priorities:

• Early and effective intervention - we offer a range of evidence-based interventions such as Cognitive Behavioural Therapy
• Helping people to live well - we use the DIALOGUE+ approach for holistic care planning
• Research and innovation - we promote opportunities for research with our patients and carers
• Keeping our service users, carers and staff safe - we have several QI projects in the service to develop safe and effective ways of working

Job responsibilities

As a nurse within the Camden or Islington CMHT you will be responsible for a caseload of older adults who require secondary mental health care and treatment. You will carry out a range of interventions in collaboration with service users and their families/carers. You will be supported by a multidisciplinary team and work closely with the senior nurse in the team. You will also liaise closely with GPs and other primary care services, secondary health services, voluntary sector organisations, and Adult Social Care.

Person Specification

Education/Qualifications

• Registered Mental Health Nurse
• Current registration with relevant professional body.
• Evidence of further post-registration relevant training /ongoing academic study relevant to area of practice.
• Current Level 2 Safeguarding Children and Safeguarding Vulnerable Adults certificates
• Mentorship or recognised teaching and assessing certificate or willingness to undertake.
• Minimum 2 years post qualifying experience.
• Other advanced relevant training i.e. CBT/Dementia Care/Gerontology/Advanced Care Planning etc.

Knowledge/Experience

• Demonstrable experience in a specialist capacity caring for older people with mental health problems and/or dementia in a community care or inpatient setting.
• Demonstrate a sound knowledge and understanding of the needs of older people with mental illness and/or dementia and the opportunities and challenges of caring for them.
• Demonstrate practical experience within a senior role of dealing with the needs of people with complex needs.
• Demonstrate a sound knowledge and extensive experience in relation to functional mental health and dementia; treatment, impact and evidence based care.
• Demonstrate a clear understanding of the Mental Health Act and Mental Capacity Act legislation, its application and use in practice.
• Demonstrable understanding and experience of professionally specific and generic assessment tools and treatment modalities.
• Demonstrate a sound knowledge and understanding of the needs of informal carers.
• Demonstrate an understanding of risk together with an ability to evaluate and contain risk with reference to the individual, staff and carers.
• Demonstrate practical experience of supervision within a clinical context

Skills/Abilities

• Excellent verbal and written communication skill.
• Highly motivated and committed to improving quality and services for older people and people living with dementia.
• Able to work autonomously and to deputise for senior staff in a variety of roles when required to do so.
• Able to work as part of and to lead a team.
• Ability to maintain boundaries and form positive therapeutic relationships with service users and carers.
• Competent using computers and keyboards for entering personally generated data, generating and responding to emails, conducting web searches, storing data and retrieving data, producing reports etc.
• Demonstrable skill of implementing change processes.

Disclosure and Barring Service Check

This post is subject to the Rehabilitation of Offenders Act (Exceptions Order) 1975 and as such it will be necessary for a submission for Disclosure to be made to the Disclosure and Barring Service (formerly known as CRB) to check for any previous criminal convictions.

£42,471 to £50,364 a yearPer annum inclusive of Inner London HCAS