Mental Health Link Practitioner

Kent and Medway NHS & Social Care Partnership Trust; Maidstone; On-site; GBP 30,000 - 40,000; Full time

Job summary

A regional NHS organization in Maidstone is seeking a Link Practitioner to facilitate patient transitions from secure services to the community. The role involves working closely with service users and relevant Multi-Disciplinary Teams (MDTs) ensuring effective care delivery. Candidates must possess strong communication skills, the ability to work autonomously, and experience in mental health services. This role offers significant professional development and support within a compassionate and diverse environment.

Benefits

Professional development opportunities

Supportive work environment

Diverse team culture

Qualifications

• Experience in mental health services is required.
• Knowledge of Community Treatment Orders and risk management.
• Ability to work with challenging behaviours.

Responsibilities

• Identify issues in patient care and discharge barriers.
• Support transition from secure services to community.
• Develop relationships with stakeholders in criminal justice.

Skills

Communication skills

Autonomy

Clinical advice

Job description

Job overview

Are you interested in being involved in a 12 month pilot within our Forensic Outreach Liaison Service? The new role of the Link Practitioner will work across FOLS and the Community Mental Health Teams (CMHT) in Kent.

The role will ensure that discharge planning stays on track without undue delay. It aims to enable faster transfer of care into the CMHT while maintaining safety and connection between the CMHT and FOLS. The practitioner will have knowledge of the CMHT and the FOLS team to support with the transfer of patient care. They will liaise with the relevant MDT in the CMHT and monitor closely the transition ensuring all relevant people are informed and involved.

The practitioner’s role will be to inform and educate the CMHT around Community Treatment Order (CTO); Conditional Discharge; contribution towards care plans; risk management; etc.

The practitioner will provide support both to the CMHT professionals and to the patient & carer while waiting for input from the CMHT if required depending on needs.

Main duties of the job

• To identify and highlight issues relating to patient care and barriers to discharge between the FOLS team and locality teams.
• To work in collaboration with the patient to support transition from secure services to the community
• To communicate face to face with service users on a regular basis, some of which display challenging behaviours.
• To be able to communicate effectively & confidently with a range of services, taking into account differing organisational practices.
• To work autonomously with the ability to organise and manage own time accordingly to delegated workload.
• To provide specialist clinical advice to multi agency team, providing specialist support to service users in the community.
• To develop strong and effective relationships with relevant stakeholders in criminal justice, statutory and third sector organisations.
• To ensure that practice in the teams is based on the best available evidence and is responsive to individual service users, their carers and families needs.
• To work collaboratively with managers and other clinical leads to develop and progress initiatives to improve the quality of care.
• To enable an understanding of national and local policy and professional guidelines amongst the workforce, supporting them to be accountable for their practice.
• To escalate issues of poor professional conduct or practice as necessary.

Working for our organisation

Come and work with us in the Garden of England where we combine exceptional professional development opportunities with a tremendous quality of life.

We are Kent and Medway NHS and Social Care Partnership Trust (KMPT), providing mental health, learning disability and specialist services, serving 1.8 million people in Kent and Medway, as well as specialist services for adults in Sussex and Surrey. We are rated Good overall by the CQC.

Each year we care for over 2,000 people in our hospitals and 54,000 people in the community.

We are proud to employ over 3,800 people from 66 nationalities, and to serve an increasingly diverse range of communities across rural and urban areas.

You will be joining friendly, passionate colleagues, rich in their diversity, who are committed to providing excellent care to our service users and their loved ones.

The nature of our work attracts kindness and compassion as standard and everyone from our cleaners and porters to the chief executive and chairman are recognised as playing a vital role in providing an exemplary service.

Our strategy

Our mission is what we set out to do every day

We deliver brilliant care through brilliant people

Our vision is where we want to be in the future

To provide outstanding care and to work in partnership to deliver this in the right place, for every service user, every time.