Consultant Liaison Psychiatrist

Integrated Care System; London; On-site; GBP 105,000 - 140,000; Full time

Job summary

A leading trust is seeking a Consultant Liaison Psychiatrist to join its established team at St George's Hospital. The role encompasses psychiatric assessments, treatment of patients, and collaboration with multidisciplinary teams and other consultants in managing complex cases while ensuring high-quality mental health care within an emergency setting. This position offers a competitive salary with London allowances and excellent professional development opportunities.

Benefits

Flexible working options

Career development opportunities

Inclusive and diverse work environment

Support for professional development

Qualifications

• Experience in liaison psychiatry for at least a year.
• Full GMC registration and Specialist Registration for General Adult Psychiatry.

Responsibilities

• Participate in the liaison psychiatry team's work in a large teaching hospital.
• Manage complex cases and provide assessments and treatments.

Skills

Psychopharmacological interventions

Risk assessment

Teaching

Clinical Leadership

Education

Primary Medical degree

MRCPsych or equivalent

Qualification in a talking therapy (CBT, DBT, MBT)

CCT in General Adult Psychiatry or Liaison Psychiatry

Job description

Go back South West London and St Georges Mental Health NHS Trust

Consultant Liaison Psychiatrist

The closing date is 03 August 2025

The Trust is seeking a Consultant Psychiatrist for St George's Hospital Liaison Psychiatry. This is an established post. The vacancy has arisen as a result of current established consultant reducing his clinical hours to participate in management roles in Medical Education within the trust.

This is an exciting opportunity for an energetic and dynamic consultant psychiatrist to join this effective, friendly and rewarding service.

The Consultant Psychiatrist will work with the other Liaison Consultants, Drs Marcus Hughes, Alex Butt and Stuart Adams, to provide senior cover to the hospital wards and the Accident and Emergency Department, whilst working within and jointly clinically supervising the Liaison Team. During daytime hours, the team sees patients above 18 years in all wards and departments, including the Emergency Department.

The post holder will spend some time providing assessments, reviews and treatment/aftercare recommendations. He/she will also jointly supervise a weekly caseload of an average of 40 - 50 patients seen by other members of the Liaison Psychiatry team.

Main duties of the job

In this post the Consultant will participate in the work of the liaison psychiatry team in a large, general teaching hospital with almost 1000 beds. He/she will undertake psychiatric assessment and treatment of patients referred by non-psychiatric teams from St George's Hospital. Patients are referred from all wards and clinical areas within the hospital, including new presentations of functional and organic illness, as well as patients with established mental disorders who have been admitted for medical or surgical treatment. The post-holder will manage mental disorders in this setting, including prescribing for patients with altered metabolism, and delivering brief psychological interventions. The post-holder will conduct and supervise psychiatric assessment and management of deliberate self-harm and psychiatric emergencies presenting in the Accident and Emergency department, as well as hospital wards.

About us

We are Proud to Belong at South West London and St George's Mental Health NHS Trust.

We have expert services, a rich history and a clear commitment to providing the best quality care for those with mental ill-health. The Care Quality Commission already rates our services as 'good' - we aspire to be 'outstanding'.

This is a great time to join us. We are transforming the way we care for our communities to support our mission of Making Life Better Together. We have built two brand new mental health facilities at Springfield University Hospital, which are amongst the best in the world. More developments are planned across our sites and services.

We are inclusive and diverse and strive to be actively anti racist. We want to attract people from all backgrounds and experiences to enrich the work we do together. We are proud to co-produce and involve our local communities in all that we do.

We offer flexible working, career development and a variety of benefits to enable a positive, welcoming environment in which our people and their careers can thrive.

Job responsibilities

Medical leadership, working in the multi-disciplinary team and working closely with, and providing cross-cover to other Consultant Psychiatrists and occasionally their Associate Clinical Director within their service line.

Overall responsibility for the day-to-day clinical care, risk assessment, risk management, initiation of medication, and the recovery focused care delivered by the Team

Availability within normal working hours 5 days a week for urgent review and management including formal Mental Health Act assessments.

Providing cross-cover for the Consultant colleagues where necessary.

Management of complex cases

Allocation of resources, in collaboration with the team manager, to service users and carers.

Ensuring the delivery of effective, efficient and safe, recovery focused mental health care.

Multi-disciplinary and multi-agency working with social care, statutory and voluntary and third sector partners.

Please refer attached JDPS for detailed information

Person Specification

QUALIFICATIONS

• Primary Medical degree
• Full GMC registration.
• Included on the GMC Specialist
• Register for General Adult Psychiatry or eligible for such inclusion on the Specialist Registrar within three months of completing their CCT.
• Section 12 (2) approval of the Mental Health Act
• Experience of working in liaison psychiatry at Consultant/Higher Specialist trainee for at least a year
• MRCPsych, or equivalent. CCT in General Adult Psychiatry, or sub-specialty CCT in Liaison Psychiatry and significant experience of General Adult psychiatry at a senior level.
• Qualification in a talking therapy such as CBT, DBT or MBT
• Qualifications in change management and service development skills Other higher degrees or further training relevant to the post.

KNOWLEDGE: & EXPERIENCE:

• Completed minimum of three years full time training in approved higher psychiatric training scheme.
• A detailed knowledge of main treatment approaches for severe mental illness including psychopharmacological interventions
• Knowledge and experience of the CPA process, risk assessment and risk management
• Experience of teaching medical and non-medical staff, including those who may not have a formal qualification

AUDIT AND MANAGEMENT:

• Engage in continuing professional development, and join a Peer Group to gain approval for CPD done.
• Commitment to developing practice through clinical audit, quality improvement, and working with colleagues in the liaison psychiatry team, the acute trust, and managers. Commitment to working with allied agencies including carer's groups, and local charities.
• Experience of service planning and development Experience of working with third sector partners

RESEARCH AND PUBLICATIONS:

• Evidence of participation in research, and outcomes of studies
• Higher degree in research Completion of a research project and evidence of it's dissemination Publication in a peer reviewed journal

TEACHING:

• Experience of teaching undergraduate and postgraduate psychiatry
• Teaching Qualification
• Evidence of feedback good from students

PERSONAL SKILLS AND CHARACTERISTICS

• Ability to remain calm under pressure Ability to inspire others Ability to provide good clinical leadership Ability to effect change Ability to negotiate and collaborate with first, second and third sector organisations to identify shared agendas and meet common goals
• Willingness to supervise junior medical staff and staff from allied disciplines Willingness to take on a fair share of Trustwide duties Commitment to personal, team and service development
• Ability to work co-operatively in multi- disciplinary teams Ability to manage and adapt to change
• Personal experience of mental illness Personal experience of social distress
• Evidence of helping others who have suffered physical, mental or social misfortune Evidence of seeking feedback as a way of improving one's skills

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 West London and St Georges Mental Health NHS Trust

£105,504 to £139,882 a yearper annum pro rata plus London Zone Allowances