Consultant Lewisham CAMHS Horizon & Crisis

NHS; Greater London; On-site; GBP 109,000 - 146,000; Full time

Job summary

A leading healthcare provider in the UK is looking for a Consultant to join their Lewisham CAMHS team, focusing on providing high-quality mental health care to young people. This role involves substantial responsibilities in treatment, assessment, and team leadership. The post-holder will enjoy professional support and opportunities for career advancement. The successful candidate will be part of an experienced multidisciplinary team, ensuring excellent mental health services for children and adolescents. Generous pay and benefits are included.

Benefits

Generous pay, pensions and leave

Career development programmes

NHS discounts

Counseling services

Cycle to work scheme

Qualifications

• Experience in assessing and managing complex co-morbidities, including Crisis Care.
• Experience in Outpatient/Community Child and Adolescent Psychiatry with advanced management expertise.
• Training in treatment modalities relevant to child and adolescent psychiatry.

Responsibilities

• Provide Consultant leadership and medical cover in crisis situations.
• Conduct assessments and manage treatment plans for young patients.
• Engage in structure professional activities focused on service development.

Skills

Excellent leadership skills

Excellent adolescent psychiatric assessment skills

Good ability to relate to children, adolescents and parents

Good ability to work in a team setting

Understanding of safeguarding

Education

MRCPsych membership or equivalent

Membership or Fellowship of the Royal College of Psychiatrists

Fully registered with the GMC with a licence to practise

Job description

Go back South London and Maudsley NHS Foundation Trust

Consultant Lewisham CAMHS Horizon & Crisis

The closing date is 08 February 2026

This substantive post is a new post, arisen following the increased demands of Lewisham CAMHS. It offers a unique opportunity to join an established and dynamic service in Lewisham CAMHS, within South London and Maudsley NHS Foundation Trust.

The post holder will be based within the Horizon Generic team and the CRISIS team in Lewisham CAMHS. The Generic role focuses on the assessment of, and provision of specific evidence-based interventions for young people with complex mental health difficulties. The CRISIS role comprises 7-day-follow up (when urgent medical assessment and treatment is required) to those Lewisham-based patients presenting at any ED and brief intervention.

This is a time of change and expansion in the medical team in Lewisham CAMHS. We have a number of well-established and experienced Consultants. This role is a 10 PA WTE.

The successful applicant will also join the SLaM consultant CAMHS on-call rota (see On-call Section) and the weekly local consultant on-call rota.

Main duties of the job

This 10 PA post is split into DCC and SPA sessions: 7 PAs with Horizon team and 3 PAs with the CRISIS treatment team. The post benefits from 2.5 SPA time (in total, pro rata) - structured professional activities, during which the post holder will contribute to service development, research clinical governance and quality improvement, in addition to completing continuous professional development and pursuing other professional activities. Please see notional timetable below for how this could be split.

The Horizon team is a well-established service that also has another consultant psychiatrist (10 PAs split between Horizon generic team and ADHD team) as well as consultant psychology (part-time), psychotherapists (part-time) and family therapists (part-time) to support in the leadership of the team. The clinical service lead (Full time) is an experienced and highly efficient manager who manages the multidisciplinary team members. We offer specialist interventions following assessments to young people and includes individual work as well as group work. The team have a history of innovative ways of working and cater to young people and children aged 0 to 18 years who are registered with Lewisham GP.

The service has developed a very close working relationship with local partners and tier 2 services such as the MHST (Mental Health at Schools Team), CWP (Child Wellbeing Practitioners) teams and Community Paediatric team in Lewisham.

About us

We are committed to ensuring our staff get the most out of their benefits package and understand the importance of a healthy work life balance. There is an extensive range of excellent benefits for you and your family. It's important to us that you are valued and appreciated and that is why we have a comprehensive benefits package on offer.

Some of our benefits are highlighted here:

• Generous pay, pensions and leave.We offer a comprehensive pay, pensions and leave package which is dependent on the role and length of service.
• Work life balance.We support a range of flexible working options, such as: part-time working and job sharing.
• Career development.There are plenty of opportunities to progress your career and we support your development through a number of programmes such as mentoring, coaching, positive people management, collective leadership and other talent programmes.
• Car lease.Our staff benefit from competitive deals to lease cars.
• Our staff benefit from keyworker housing, which is available on selected sites.
• NHS discounts.With discounts of up to 10% from a variety of well-known retail brands through the Health Service Discounts website.
• Counselling services
• Long service awards
• Cycle to work scheme
• Season ticket loan
• Staff restaurants

Job responsibilities

Other duties

The post-holder will be expected to provide Consultant leadership and medical cover. The weekly crisis second on-call cover is to those young people presenting in crisis primarily at University Hospital Lewisham (UHL). This includes the Adult Majors, Minors, Paediatric ED and the Paediatric wards. The crisis team are well functioning team with nurses who will assess and escalate to junior doctors and to the post holder as needed.

This includes Emergency presentations or Paediatric ward review following admission at University Hospital Lewisham) within the borough in conjunction with the other consultants and resident doctors to ensure that there is always appropriate senior medical cover. This supports the Crisis rota with the crisis team (supported by the Response Team). MHA assessments are rare and the post holder is expected to conduct them when needed and work with the crisis team to care plan.

Consultant Psychiatrists provide cross cover for these duties during leave periods. This is worked out by mutual agreement, and we are very good at maintaining excellent communication and relationships between consultant colleagues in Lewisham CAMHS. There is a regular team meeting and a Teams channel to maintain close working relationships.

How this post is supported

There is support from an experienced administration team, coordinated by the Borough Business Manager. The postholder will be supported administratively through this team.

The successful candidate will have an office (likely shared with one other Consultant Psychiatrist). They have their own desk, computer (work laptop) and telephone (landline and work mobile) with access to IT support. The team has administrative support.

Non car drivers can access transport for essential clinical journeys.

There is scope to develop specialism within the overall role to this service.

Psychiatric Trainees and SAS Doctors

Lewisham CAMHS benefits from the support of one Core Trainee (CT1-3) and two Specialist Trainees (ST4-6) on the South London and Maudsley training schemes. However, this is due to change due to wider national levelling up agenda (in which London is expected to lose a significant number of training posts).

The Training Programme Director for CAMHS Specialist Trainees is Dr Dan Hayes, Consultant Psychiatrist. This is not a training post, but you will be involved in supporting the trainees through both formal and informal teaching, as opportunity arises.

Timetable

This is a notional timetable. It can be adapted to meet the needs of the post holder and the service, in the context of the job planning process with the lead clinician. There will be a 7.5 / 2.5 DCC / SPA split. Although there are no specific additional responsibilities associated with the post, the post holder would be encouraged to take up additional roles commensurate with their seniority and interests, to be incorporated into their negotiated job. These could include lead roles in education and training (undergraduate or postgraduate), safeguarding, clinical governance etc.

The consultant role involves providing clinical and medical leadership for both the MDT and junior medical staff.

Timetable (continued)

Monday

Tuesday

Thursday

Friday

am

Crisis Team

Huddle

DCC HORIZON Clinic +admin

Crisis Team Clinic + admin

SPA

SPA

Clinic Admin

DCC HORIZON Clinic +admin

pm

Crisis Team Clinic + admin

HORIZON team Meeting

DCC FOLLOW-UP

DCC HORIZON Clinic +admin

Advisory meeting (monthly)

SPA

Person Specification

Qualifications

• MRCPsych membership or equivalent
• Membership or Fellowship of the Royal College of Psychiatrists
• Qualification or higher degree in medical education, clinical research or management
• Experience in other relevant specialties such as in patient psychiatry, liaison psychiatry (especially Paediatrics)
• Fully registered with the GMC with a licence to practise at the time of appointment
• Evidence for inclusion in the Specialist Register or within six months of gaining CCT in C&A psychiatry or Equivalent training in Child and Adolescent Psychiatry (CESR issued by PMETB).
• Section 12 approved
• Approved Clinician status or able to achieve within three months of appointment

Training and Experience

• Experience of assessing and managing complex co-morbidities, including Crisis Care
• Experience in Outpatient/Community Child and Adolescent Psychiatry with higher level diagnosis and management expertise
• Special interest in complex mental health presentations comorbid with neurodevelopmental conditions
• Training in treatment modalities
• Experience of providing consultation to non-CAMHS practitioners
• Consultant experienced in community CAMHS

Clinical Skills

• Excellent leadership skills
• Excellent adolescent psychiatric assessment skills
• Good ability to relate to children, adolescents and parents
• Good ability to work in a team setting
• Understanding of safeguarding
• Ability to assess capacity and consent
• Understanding of how complaints and serious incidents are managed
• Up-to-date knowledge and fitness to practice
• Expertise in the use and application of The Mental Health Act in children and young people
• Evidence of skills in consultation to non-mental health specialists e.g. GPs, social workers, paediatricians
• Evidence of range of specialist and sub-specialist experience relevant to post within NHS or comparable service
• Expertise in CBT or other therapeutic intervention to postgraduate level
• Significant experience of developing and leading outpatient/community CAMHS psychiatric care

Academic Skills and Lifelong Learning

• Management/Audit: Participation in audit or QI in clinical posts
• Teaching: Experience of teaching a range of disciplines
• Research: Involvement in research projects
• Personal Skills: Excellent demonstrable communication skills in English (both oral and written)
• Personal Skills: Ability to work within a multi-disciplinary team and resolve conflict
• Personal Skills: Probity
• Personal Skills: Eligible to work in the UK
• Management/Audit: Able to plan and deliver undergraduate and postgraduate teaching and training relevant to this post
• Teaching: Reflected on purpose of CPD undertaken
• Research: Experienced in clinical research and / or service evaluation
• Research: Evidence of achievement in education, research, audit and service improvement: awards, prizes, presentations and publications
• Personal Skills: Has led quality improvement projects/audits leading to service change or improved outcomes to patients
• Personal Skills: Evidence of involvement with business planning of clinical services
• Personal Skills: Peer reviewed publication
• Personal Skills: Book publication

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.

South London and Maudsley NHS Foundation Trust

Depending on experience £109,725 - £145,478 per annum