Mental Health Practitioner

Oxleas NHS Foundation Trust; Exeter; On-site; GBP 30,000 - 40,000; Full time

Job summary

A leading healthcare provider is seeking a Registered Mental Health Practitioner to join their team in delivering specialized mental health care to offenders. This role involves working within a multidisciplinary team to provide comprehensive support and interventions, ensuring continuity of care and promoting positive health outcomes. The successful candidate will blend clinical knowledge with personal skills to deliver high standards of care in a challenging yet rewarding environment.

Qualifications

• Substantial post-registration experience in frontline adult mental health services.
• Experience in a variety of settings.

Responsibilities

• Provide specialist mental healthcare to offenders.
• Perform robust assessment, screening, and interventions.
• Ensure integrated and collaborative working with other specialist services.

Skills

CBT

Psychosocial interventions

Family Interventions

DBT approaches

Education

Diploma level/Degree in relevant health/social care profession

Current relevant registration with the NMC or HCPC

Job description

Are you ready to unlock your potential within a challenging, creative and fast paced work environment? Do you want work with people to build positive and productive lives, whatever their past?

This is an excellent opportunity for a Registered Mental Health Practitioner to join our team of diverse, talented healthcare professionals to deliver care that is not only efficient but deeply centred on the patient.

We welcome application from Registered AHP’s, Registered Mental Health Nurses and Registered Social Workers

Our healthcare team have a real impact on promoting health and well-being to those in prison and we pride ourselves on using skills and strategies that instil hope for patient’s future resettlement back into the community. We directly deliver Mental Health, Physical Health, Pharmacy and Clinical Substance Misuse in an integrated healthcare delivery model to provide effective and responsive care to improve wellbeing and support better outcomes in the future.

This position isn’t just a job; it’s a chance to blend your clinical knowledge, personal skills and a commitment to delivering the highest standards of care in an environment that is as rewarding as it is challenging.

Important Sponsorship Information for this post: Due to service budget restrictions we are currently unable to offer a certificate of sponsorship for this post.

Main duties of the job

As a Mental Health Practitioner you will be providing specialist mental healthcare to offenders and working as part of the Mental Health In-Reach Team, plus wider mental health services. You will be required to work in a psychologically minded way with offenders in achieving their agreed goals and quality health outcomes.

Our Mental Health Team provide specialist interventions at primary and secondary care level including; referral management, screening assessment, triage, evidence-based interventions, care planning and risk assessing, plus one-to-one and group-work facilitation.

Our Mental Health Practitioners manage a mixed and challenging caseload and are required to perform robust assessment, screening and interventions to offenders with learning disabilities and mental health conditions. You will contribute to alternatives to inpatient admission and assisting with early discharge through the implementation of high intensity interventions and complex case management arrangements.

One of our key aims is to ensure continuity of care for an offender on ordinary location and reduce the length of stay, both in relation to prison inpatient services and external NHS/independent in-patient services. You will work closely with community mental health teams to ensure appropriate sharing of information, continuity of care and the Care Programme Approach for all offenders as necessary.

Working for our organisation

Oxleas offers a wide range of NHS healthcare services to people in community and secure environment settings. Our services include community health care such as district nursing and speech and language therapy, care for people with learning disabilities and mental health care such as psychiatry, nursing and therapies. Our multidisciplinary teams look after people of all ages and we work in close partnership with other parts of the NHS, local councils and the voluntary sector and through our new provider collaboratives. Our 4,300 members of staff work in many different settings including hospitals, clinics, prisons, secure hospitals, children’s centres, schools and people’s homes.

We have over 125 sites in a variety of locations in the South of England. In London we operate within the Boroughs of Bexley, Bromley Greenwich and into Kent. We manage hospital sites including Queen Mary’s Hospital, Sidcup and Memorial Hospital, Woolwich, as well as the Bracton Centre, our medium secure unit for people with mental health needs. We are the largest NHS provider of prison health services providing healthcare to prisons within Devon, Dorset, Bristol, Wiltshire and Gloucestershire, Kent and South London. We are proud of the care we provide and our people.

Our purpose is to improve lives by providing the best possible care to our patients and their families. This is strengthened by our new values:

• We Listen
• We Care

Detailed job description and main responsibilities

• To perform robust assessment, screening, and interventions to service users with mental health and neurodevelopmental and trauma needs.
• Ensure that all waiting time, assessment and interventions are delivered in a timely manner, and positively contribute to the achievement of the service’s performance targets.
• Ensure integrated and collaborative working with other specialist services, including continuity of care and through the gate arrangements and liaison.
• Work closely with community mental health teams (CMHTs) to ensure appropriate sharing of information, continuity of care and the Care Programme Approach (CPA) for all service users where necessary.
• To provide comprehensive and timely reports and mental health expertise to multi agency public protection panels (MAPPA), police, probation services, solicitors and court liaison teams as directed.
• Deliver active clinical leadership and supervision within the team, covering for the manager and colleagues as required. To receive supervision as directed (line management and clinical).
• To participate in resource centre services as directed, delivering psychological therapy and specialist activities under the direction of the clinical lead.
• To work in a psychologically minded way with service users in achieving their agreed goals and quality health outcomes.
• Close working relationships with all prison staff, to include participation in sentence planning, resettlement, safer custody, and the ACCT processes.
• To develop and take on a specialist lead role as appropriate and provide peer support and training in this area.
• To contribute towards support, advice, consultation, and training for prison staff.
• The post holder will be part of a skilled multidisciplinary team (MDT) comprising of all healthcare staff, including strategic partners, and prison managing a single referral pathway.
• The post holder will be required to undertake training to maximise uptake of screening, health promotion and prevention activity, including vaccinations.
• The post holder will be required to hold a caseload and care co-ordinate services uses with secondary mental health and complex needs. Ensuring a proactive, evidence-based approach to clinical interventions, health promotion/prevention activity, and management of acute and long-term conditions using a stepped care approach.
• The post holder will ensure that a single, integrated, care plan is devolved in collaboration with service users and responsible for facilitating the development of comprehensive risk assessment, crisis plans, rapid access plans, advance statements etc, involving other agencies such as primary care etc where appropriate. Ensure the individualised care is regularly reviewed and updated where necessary.
• The post holder as a care coordinator will attend/contribute in a weekly MDT meeting for service uses on secondary case load and complex care needs. This will ensure a tailored individual needs approach.
• The post holder will ensure that they undertake all training in evidence-based CBT approaches, to enhance consistency and quality of care delivery.
• The post holder will support patients to manage all areas of their health at every stage, from oral health to long term conditions.
• The post holder will ensure that health promotion embedded into every aspect of the service.

IMPORTANT INFORMATION, PLEASE READ :

All applicants must be willing to undertake National Security Vetting in order to work in a Prison Setting. This will be completed as part of the pre-employment checks through Oxleas and the prison vetting team.

You will need to provide:

Proof of right to work documentation

Proof of ID, needs to include 1 photographic ID

Proof of address documentation

Non-UK passport holders will need to have correct documentation (right to work in the UK) and a Home office Share code.

Address History:

5 years address history will be needed.

Applicants that are not UK Passport holders who provide less than 5 years UK address history will need to provide a Police Certificate which must be in English from where they resided previously.

Applicants who are UK Passport holders who have lived abroad for a period of more than six months during the last three years will need to provide a certificate of good conduct or an overseas police check in English from the countries resided in or visited.

In order to assist you in obtaining a Police Certificate, guidance can be soughtfrom:https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/criminal-records-checks-for-overseas-applicants

If the country you have resided in is not listed here, you can obtain the necessary information by contacting the relevant Embassy or High Commission for that Country. Their contact details can be found on the Foreign & Commonwealth Office website ( http://www.fco.gov.uk/en ).

Person specification

Education/Qualifications

• Diploma level/Degree in relevant health/social care profession, eg RMN, RLDN OT, Social Worker
• Current relevant registration with the NMC or HCPC

Experience

• Substantial post-registration experience gained working in a range of frontline adult mental health services, undertaking assessment and delivering interventions.
• Experience gained in a variety of settings

Skills

• Ability to deliver from a range of possible key therapeutic interventions CBT, Psychosocial interventions, Family Interventions, DBT approaches.
• Demonstrates substantial experience of supervising others, monitoring their performance appraisal and ensuring delivery of activity.
• Demonstrates a developed understanding of the recovery principles, and the role of secondary mental health services in the delivery of care.

We are committed to creating an inclusive workplace that welcomes and supports individuals of all abilities. Remember, if you meet the minimum criteria for this role and you have a disability, you can be guaranteed an interview under the Disability Confident Scheme - Please ensure you select this on your application form. We would encourage you to be open about your needs so we can work with you to design a comfortable and accessible interview experience. Any information you provide regarding a disability or a need for adjustments will be treated in confidence and will only be shared with colleagues who are supporting this request.

If you require any adjustments to participate fully in the interview process, please let us know by adding the relevant details when scheduling your preferred interview date and time. Please feel free to contact the appointing manager to discuss your needs.

We encourage applicants to contact the hiring manager before their interview, if they have any questions about the role or the process. This is a great way to get clarity and prepare effectively for the interview.

Please note that the use of Artificial Intelligence (AI) is prohibited during the interview process. We also discourage overuse of AI during the application process because this can negatively impact the quality of your application and may hinder your chances of being shortlisted. Thank you.

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.