Mental Health Patient Flow Social Care - IDT

Integrated Care System; London; On-site; GBP 42,000 - 51,000; Full time

Job summary

A leading NHS Trust is looking for a qualified 'Mental Health Patient Flow Social Care' professional to optimize discharge pathways for patients. You will play a key role in coordinating with various stakeholders while ensuring a safe transition for patients from hospital to independent living. This position at Park Royal Centre demands strong legal expertise and experience in mental health, with a full-time commitment from Monday to Friday.

Benefits

Health and wellbeing services

Season ticket loans

Cycle to work scheme

Qualifications

• Experience working with individuals presenting in mental health crisis.
• Evidence of continuing professional development.
• Experience with legislation including Care Act and Mental Capacity Act.

Responsibilities

• Coordinate the CRFD list for the Borough and manage discharge planning.
• Develop positive working relationships with stakeholders including local commissioners.
• Ensure effective communication with housing providers and benefit agencies.

Skills

Communication

Prioritization

Problem Solving

Legal Literacy

Education

Social Work Qualification

Current Social Work England Registration

Tools

SystmOne

Job description

Go back Central and North West London NHS Foundation Trust

Mental Health Patient Flow Social Care - IDT

The closing date is 14 July 2025

The post holder will work in a targeted way to achieve the best pathway out of hospital, maximizing independence and choice for the individual and working in a solution focused way to ensure that once ready, there are no barriers in place to an effective discharge.

The post holder will work with individuals identified through their attendance and participation at daily whiteboard meetings and weekly Bed Management and Clinically Ready For Discharge (CRFD) meetings. This will provide them with a complete picture of the acute care pathway and barriers to patient flow.

The post holder must be adept at prioritizing the activities that will most rapidly lead to effective discharge and have strong legal literacy to ensure that there are no legal barriers to discharge. This includes expert knowledge of housing legislation, Care Act 2014, No Recourse to Public Funds, Mental Health Act (s117) and the Mental Capacity Act including Court of Protection.

The post holder will sit organizationally within the Inpatient Services and be present on the inpatient wards within a defined geographical area working with an identified caseload to enable effective discharge planning. This post is for Park Royal Centre for mental health, it's a 9-5 post Monday -Friday and due to the nature of the role it is a fact to face job.

Main duties of the job

The post holder will coordinate the CRFD list for the Borough and attend the weekly CRFD meeting as a matter of routine to update on progress and highlight any potential blocks that they have been unable to resolve.Using strengths based social work practice to manage a specific caseload of individuals who are inpatients and patients on HTT caseload and have potential barriers to discharge identified early on, in their inpatient stay or admission to HTT. Pre-empt and resolve arising barriers to discharge and length of stay.

Ensure that patient care is provided in the most appropriate care setting to ensure effective and efficient treatment and that there is a clear and robust discharge plan. This will involve attendance on wards for specific discussions including White Board meetings, and s117 discharge planning meetings.

This role requires successful candidates to be able to engage in Therapeutic Management of Violence and Aggression (TMVA) training, including the use of force techniques and the ability to attend resuscitation training and perform CPR. This is because of the high-acuity nature of the ward / community environment and the need to ensure the safety of both patients and staff. The role is conditional upon candidates being able to engage in TMVA training and resus training during the course of their employment whilst undertaking this role

About us

Central and North West London NHS Foundation Trust offers its staff ongoing career progression through:

• Monthly supervision
• Access to exciting internal and external training opportunities.

Excellent progression through various career pathway opportunities such as but not limited to:

• Hidden Gem and annual award ceremonies

Excellent staff benefits, our benefit packages are amongst the best in London and include:

• Health and wellbeing services
• Season ticket loans
• Cycle to work scheme

The trust also values its staff and you are entitled to become a member of MyTrustBenefits. MyTrustBenefits is an online portal for all CNWL staff, as well as their family and friends. It offers over 1400 discounts at hundreds of retailers nationwide. Save money on your weekly food shops, toiletries, cosmetics, cinema, meals out, holidays, travel and entertainment. You can also access free online courses on a variety of topics, professional and personal, ranging from business management, languages and teaching.

The successful applicant may have contact with patients or service users. As an NHS Trust we strongly encourage and support vaccination as this remains the best way to protect yourself, your family, your colleagues and of course patients and service users when working on our healthcare settings.

Job responsibilities

Please see above for detailed job description and main responsibilities. Attend the weekly bed management meetings and take an active role in challenging delays in discharge.

• Develop positive working relationships with key stakeholders, including local commissioners ( health & local authority)
• To develop effective relationships with housing providers, tenancy support teams and benefit agencies specific to the Borough.
• Verification of purpose of admission and expected length of stay for all new admissions to the hospital. Ensure ward staff have identified an Expected Date of Discharge (EDD) and identify likely pathway out of hospital early during their inpatient stay.
• Ensure that tenancies are maintained whilst in hospital and that independence is maximised on discharge.
• Where necessary, to take a lead in commencing discharge planning until such stage as community care coordinator is appointed
• To provide robust assessment of need and risk assessment with due regard to the principles of personalization, balancing risk, choice and control to produce a care plan, which demonstrates consideration of the least restrictive option.
• Work to facilitate / broker positive risk taking over cases between the ward and HTT. Pre-empt, accelerate homelessness unit input / liaison.
• Investigate cases that are about to pass / have passed projected milestone/ discharge dates in the acute care pathway i.e., discharge review, discharge plan in place, discharge date.
• Work with communities and employers to ensure the individual maintains links with their community supports whilst an inpatient.
• Develop positive working relationships with the local housing teams and placements panel and have an excellent understanding of the paperwork required to present to panel for funding.
• Support care coordinators with complex cases that require continuing care funding or where there is a complex family situation preventing safe discharge, including liaison with Childrens Services when necessary, where there are children involved.
• Ensure early liaison with the community teams of pending discharges to HTT or direct to community.

Person Specification

Education / Qualifications

• Social Work Qualification
• Current Social work England Registration.
• Evidence of continuing professional development.
• Professional Expertise

Experience

• Working with people presenting in mental health crisis and their families/carers
• Multi-agency working/working across service interfaces
• Experience of applying legislation in practice including Care Act, MCA and s117
• Experience of using strengths based approaches to support individuals to maximise independence and achieve their goals
• Experience of presenting cases to funding panels.
• Experience of working with housing and specialist services
• Experience of working to deadlines
• Experience of safeguarding adults at risk and children

Skills & Abilities

• Communicating (oral and written) complex/highly technical and clinically sensitive information to clients, their families, carers and other professional colleagues both within and outside the NHS.
• Able to meet the service needs for mobility across the geographical area covered.
• Able to recognise and respect the values of diverse perspectives
• Able to demonstrate commitment to high quality care and service provision
• Demonstrate the ability to liaise effectively with other agencies, both statutory and non statutory
• Able to build and maintain relationships with a diverse group of colleagues, service users and partners to increase understanding
• Demonstrates the ability to empower the team to create solutions
• Ability to prioritise workload and ensure all documentation is current and up-to-date.
• Evidenced based strengths based social work interventions relevant to the service
• Knowledge of key issues relating to developments in adult mental health services at a local and national level
• Knowledge and understanding of funding panel processes
• Possess extensive knowledge of the mental health legislative framework for health and social care
• Expert knowledge of: Mental Health Act, Care Act, Mental Capacity Act including Court of Protection and Homelessness Reduction Act and Housing legislation
• Use of SystmOne

Other

• Demonstrable approach to person-centred care delivery
• Values others involved in a patients care, including carers, families, referrers and other teams/colleagues
• Able to act to pre-empt or stop discrimination and social exclusion
• Motivated, reliable and committed to team working.
• Recognise people's right to privacy and dignity, treating every person with respect
• Willingness to embrace integrated model and new ways of working
• Willingness to be flexible in approach and attitude

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.

Central and North West London NHS Foundation Trust

Address

Park Royal

Park Royal Centre for Mental Health Central Way London NW10 7NS

£42,939 to £50,697 a yearpa inc HCAS (pro rata if P/T)

Contract

Permanent

Working pattern

Full-time

Reference number

333-J-UC-0028-A

Job locations

Park Royal

Park Royal Centre for Mental Health Central Way London NW10 7NS