Highly Specialist Speech and Language Therapist

Whittington Health; London; On-site; GBP 54,000 - 61,000; Part time

Job summary

An exciting opportunity for a highly innovative Speech and Language Therapist to join a vibrant team dedicated to enhancing educational outcomes for children. This role focuses on delivering specialized therapy services, assessing and managing language disorders, and collaborating with schools to support children with diverse needs. Join a supportive environment recognized for its dedication and innovation, where your expertise will make a significant impact on the lives of children and young people in a dynamic inner-London borough. If you're passionate about helping others and thrive in a collaborative setting, this position is perfect for you.

Qualifications

• Expertise in assessing and treating language and communication issues in children.
• Experience in writing complex statutory assessment reports.

Responsibilities

• Deliver comprehensive therapy services for children with speech and language needs.
• Organize and manage a timetable across various schools.

Skills

Assessment and diagnosis of language disorders

Communication skills

Data collection and analysis

Autonomous practice

Education

BSc. Speech Path or Equivalent

HPC licence to practise

Registered member of RCSLT

Job description

Highly Specialist Speech and Language Therapist

NHS AfC: Band 7

Main area Speech and Language Therapy Grade NHS AfC: Band 7 Contract Fixed term: 12 months (ends March 2026) Hours Part time - 22.5 hours per week Job ref 220-WHT-2953-C

Employer Whittington Health NHS Trust Employer type NHS Site Northern Health Centre Town London Salary £54,320 - £60,981 pro rata per annum inclusive of HCAS Salary period Yearly Closing 12/05/2025 23:59

Getting vaccinated, and getting a booster, remains the best defence against COVID-19.
We encourage and support staff to get COVID-19 vaccine and a booster dose as and when they are eligible.

Please note in order to progress your application, your data will be processed by our 3 rd party recruitment providers – North London Partners Shared Service, who conduct recruitment activities on behalf of Whittington Health NHS Trust.

By applying for this role, you accept in the event you are successful that your personal data may be transferred from the Trust to another NHS organisation where your employment transfers within the NHS. This is in accordance with the streamlining programme which is aimed at saving you time and improving efficiencies within the NHS when your employment transfers.

Job overview

We have an exciting opportunity for a highly innovative and experienced Speech and Language Therapist to join our Mainstream Team. We are looking for a therapist who is passionate about working in Secondary and who thrives on sharing their knowledge and expertise with school staff to influence and enhance the every day school environment. The post holder will work alongside Occupational Therapy and local authority Outreach colleagues to contribute towards the development of the Universal Offer to schools, based on neurodivergent affirming principles, to support better educational, health, social and developmental outcomes for children and young people within Islington. A key part of this role will be assessing, reviewing, and writing recommendations for advice towards children and young people’s Education Health, and Care Plans (EHCPs).

The post holder will also take a lead on collating data on activity and outcomes and preparing reports for the Local Authority and Integrated Care Board.

The post is based in Islington; an inner-London borough which is vibrant and diverse. The Mainstream Therapies Team provides a multi-disciplinary service for children with additional needs and disabilities. We are renowned for being a friendly and supportive team, as evidenced by winning the Whittington Health AHP Awards Team of the Year in 2023, for innovation, dedication, and supportive team environment.

Main duties of the job

The post holder is responsible for delivering a comprehensive and highly specialist therapy service consisting of assessment, diagnosis and intervention for individual children as well as providing a support service to schools themselves to enable them to meet the needs of all pupils with SLCN.

The post holder is an autonomous practitioner and is responsible for organising and managing their own timetable in various schools across the Borough, working from a central base. They will need highly specialist knowledge in the assessment, diagnosis and treatment of developmental language disorders, and social communication difficulties including those associated with Autistic spectrum disorders and selective mutism. They will also need to be knowledgeable and experienced in assessing, treating and managing children who have associated syndromes or special educational needs which interact with their language development. This will include emotional and behavioural problems, ADHD, and syndromes such as Down’s syndrome. They will require excellent written skills and ability to efficiently write high quality advice suitable to contribute towards a child’s EHCP, as well as good data collection and analysis skills, to demonstrate outcomes.

Working for our organisation

Whittington Health serves a richly diverse population and works hard to ensure that all our services are fair and equally accessible to everyone. Nowhere is this more obvious than in the way we look after our staff. We aim to employ a workforce which is as representative as possible of this population, so we are open to the value of differences in age, disability, gender, marital status, pregnancy and maternity, race, sexual orientation, and religion or belief. The Trust believes that as a public sector organisation we have an obligation to have recruitment, training, promotion and other formal employment policies and procedures that are sensitive to these differences. We think that by doing so, we are better able to treat our patients as well as being a better place to work.

Detailed job description and main responsibilities

CLINICAL

1. To demonstrate highly specialist clinical expertise in the assessment, treatment and management of language and communication problems in school aged children, with a wide range of language and communication needs, providing appropriate specialist intervention and evaluating outcomes

2. To demonstrate highly specialist knowledge in this clinical area underpinned by current evidence-based practice and outcome measures

3. To take a clinical lead in an area of expertise for the Islington mainstream schools service area

4. To demonstrate highly developed auditory and perceptual skills in the assessment diagnosis and treatment of patients/clients

5. To make appropriate differential diagnoses and highly specialist clinical decisions on evidence from assessment of complex cases, including differential diagnoses

6. To use / apply specialist knowledge to inform sound clinical judgements/decision making for case management, developing clear care plans based on best practice

7. To demonstrate clinical effectiveness reflecting on evidence-based practice and outcome measures

8. To provide advice to others regarding the management and care of patients/clients with a wide range of language and communication needs

9. To communicate complex condition related information from assessment to clients, carers, families and members of the multi-disciplinary team/other professions, demonstrating empathy and ensuring that effective communication is achieved, particularly where barriers to understanding exist

10. To work closely with clients, carers and families, in order to agree plan of management

11. To deal with initial complaints sensitively, avoiding escalation where possible

12. To form productive relationships with others who may be under stress and/or have challenging communication difficulties.

14. To demonstrate skills in motivating clients and / or carers to engage in the therapeutic process

15. To employ counselling skills with patients, carers / clients with highly complex needs

16. To maintain sensitivity at all times to the emotional needs of children and their carers in particular when imparting potentially distressing information regarding the nature of the child’s difficulties and implications of the same

17. To demonstrate the ability to manage children with challenging behaviours including the application of appropriate management strategies

18. To monitor and review the progress of children and young people against the targets set and agreed, and to modify targets as appropriate

19. To adapt practice to meet individual patient/client circumstances

20. To reflect on clinical practice both individually and with peers identifying strengths and needs and providing evidence of sound clinical judgements, based on research and evidence based practice.

21. To develop the ability to reflect on auditory, visual and kinaesthetic aspects of client’s communication and to identify appropriate strategies to facilitate and enhance communicative effectiveness

22. To be aware of legal requirements relating to the provision of a speech and language therapy service

23. To maintain up to date and accurate case notes and write reports reflecting highly specialist knowledge, ensuring that they meet departmental standards and are in line with local Trust Policy, best practice, and RCSLT professional standards

24. To demonstrate knowledge of current policies and practice in education and incorporate these into the model of working as appropriate

25. To manage and prioritise a complex and specialist caseload independently, advising line manager on issues of service delivery including shortfall, service pressures etc

26. To demonstrate skills in dealing with complex issues to generate appropriate strategies for caseload management

27. To contribute to multi-agency assessment procedures as required, including statutory educational assessment

28. To demonstrate good negotiation skills across a range of issues and situations, recognising and resolving potential breakdown and conflict when it occurs

29. To ensure that children and young people are referred to other services as appropriate

30. To monitor and evaluate highly specialist service delivery and provide progress reports as required

31. To demonstrate comprehensive understanding of the issues associated with clinical governance and their application to professional practice. This will include compliance with / adherence to, and implementation of service and service area policies, National and Local guidelines and RCSLT Professional and Clinical Guidelines and competency framework

35. To develop a working knowledge of relevant procedures including: Safeguarding Children, SEN procedures, Working with Vulnerable Adults and other legal frameworks

32. To contribute to the local Trust’s systems of clinical governance, developing innovations in areas of risk management, quality standards setting and clinical effectiveness in collaboration with others

33. To be accountable for professional action and recognising professional boundaries, and working within defined departmental and national protocols/policies and professional code of conduct

34. To work independently accessing appraisal within an Individual Performance Framework at pre-determined intervals

Please see attached Job description for further details on role and responsibilities.

Person specification

Qualifications

• BSc. Speech Path or Equivalent (including Dip. CST)
• HPC licence to practise, and Registered member of RCSLT
• Successful completion of highly specialist/expert short courses relevant to field including DLD, ASD, education practice and learning difficulties

Knowledge and experience

• Of a range of highly specialist assessment tools and procedures to evaluate communication, speech & language skills in children & Young People
• Knowledge of local cultural, linguistic & demographic factors affecting client management
• Of providing supervision to less experienced staff
• Writing complex statutory assessment reports and supporting less experienced staff to write complex reports
• Of highly specialist approaches to mentoring, advising, supporting and clinically supervising less experienced SLTs and support staff
• Highly specialist approaches to support clients & carers with challenging behaviour, mental health needs or in high levels of distress
• Of highly specialist approaches to therapeutic interventions relevant to children & Young People
• Of the key characteristics leading to a differential diagnosis of language and communication difficulties
• Of selecting, setting & evaluating treatment goals

skills and abilities

• Excellent written and spoken communication skills
• Ability to work autonomously, acting decisively on behalf of self and others, setting own priorities
• Ability to keep and organise activity and outcome data, providing this when requested
• Pro-active and self directed and able to take an innovative approach

SAFEGUARDING CHILDREN AND ADULTS

To comply with the Trust’s Safeguarding Children and Adults policies, procedures and protocols. All individual members of staff (paid or unpaid) have a duty to safeguard and promote the welfare of children, young people and vulnerable adults This will require you to:

• Ensure you are familiar with and comply with the London Child Protection Procedures and protocols for promoting and safeguarding the welfare of children and young people.
• Ensure you are familiar and comply with theLondon Multi Agency Safeguarding Vulnerable Adults Pan London Procedures.
• Ensure you are familiar and comply with local protocols and systems for information sharing.
• Know the appropriate contact numbers and required reporting lines.
• Participate in required training and supervision.
• Comply with required professional boundaries and codes of conduct

Whittington Health is committed to safeguarding all children and vulnerable adults and expects all staff and volunteers to share this commitment.

Your application form –

• Provide only business email address for your referees – we are unable to request references from yahoo, Hotmail, Gmail accounts.
• Make sure you to include all evidence of where you meet the essential requirement on the jobs description as this forms the base of our shortlisting criteria.

Our processes –

• Closing dates are given as a guide; we are within our right to close adverts early so please ensure you submit your application as soon as possible to avoid delay.
• If you do not hear from us up to 3 weeks after the closing date of the job unfortunatelythis means you have not been successfullyshortlisted for interview. If your require feedback on your application please contact the appointing manager detailed in the body of the advert.
• Please check your emails regularly as all correspondence from us will be via trac.systems – occasionally these emails will go into your Junk folder.
• Employment at Whittington Health is offered subject to successful completion of a 6 month probationary period for all staff with the exception of GMC Registered Doctors.

Other important information –

• Applications from job seekers who require sponsorship to work in the UK are welcome and will be considered alongside all other applications. Before submitting your application and to avoid disappointment please check that you areeligible under theUKVI points based system .
• Applications are welcome from people wishing to job share or work flexible patterns. We are committed to equal opportunities.
• In submitting an application form, you authorise WhittingtonHealth NHS Trust to confirm any previous NHS service details via the Inter Authority Transfer (IAT) process should you be appointed to the post.

If you are offered a role with one of the NLPSS partner trusts, as part of pre-employment checks youridentity and right to work documentation will be verifiedremotely (in most circumstances), using a certified identity verification service provider TrustID. You will be asked to capture an image of the relevant documents as well as a “selfie” using your smartphone/tablet (if available) for facial matching. TrustID will also perform a digital address check using Trunarrative and Equifax, which is a soft check and does not leave a footprint on your credit rating. For more information, visit www.trustid.co.uk

Please note that during the recruitment process your Identity Documentation (i.e. passport, driving licence, visa, etc.) will be scanned using a device which recognises UV, Infrared and Machine Readable Zone security features of the documents provided

The Trust uses electronic new starter forms on Trac to collect personal details. Information collected is securely stored and used to set up the employee record on the ESR HR system.

We would welcome applications from individuals who are from underrepresented groups in the organisation

Employer certification / accreditation badges

You must have appropriate UK professional registration.

This post is subject to the Rehabilitation of Offenders Act 1974 (Exceptions) Order 1975 (Amendment) (England and Wales) Order 2020 and it will be necessary for a submission for Disclosure to be made to the Disclosure and Barring Service.

Name Sally-Anne Fraser Job title Team/Clinical Lead Speech & Language Therapist Email address [e-mail] Telephone number 07827 109 216

If you have problems applying, contact

Address WHT
Telephone If you have any queries, please contact NLPSS Recruitment Helpdesk tel. [phone]