mental health practitioner

South Cumbria Nhs Foundation Trust; Lancaster; On-site; GBP 32,000 - 42,000; Full time

Job summary

South Cumbria NHS Foundation Trust is inviting applications for a Band 6 Mental Health Practitioner to join the Home Treatment Team in Lancaster. You will work within a multi-disciplinary team delivering rapid assessment and triage to people experiencing acute mental health episodes in the community.

The post covers Lancaster, Morecambe and surrounding areas, with flexible patterns including long days across 7 days per week.

Responsibilities

• Provide comprehensive, evidence-based mental health assessments and triage.
• Signpost or facilitate onward referrals to appropriate mental health pathways.
• Collaborate with referrers (IRS, Acute Hospital colleagues) and MDTs to determine care pathways.

Job description

An exciting opportunity has arisen for a band 6 mental health practitioner to work in the Home Treatment Team in Lancaster.

The Home Treatment Team cares for people who are experiencing acute episodes of mental illness or emotional distress. The service is an alternative to admission and offers intensive support to service users and their families in the community.

The service works closely with the in-patient wards to support early discharges and with other parts of the mental health services as well as third sector providers, so great communication skills are essential.

The post is a full-time, permanent post covering the service over 7 days per week working long days. The team covers Lancaster, Morecambe and surrounding areas.

As a member of the team you would be working with a multi-disciplinary team consisting of Mental Health Nurses; Support Workers; Occupational Therapist; Psychologist and Consultant Psychiatrist.

You will provide a comprehensive assessment and triage service and, where necessary signposting or clear onward facilitation to a mental health pathway. Your referrers will mostly include IRS (initial response service), and Acute Hospital colleagues, trust employed mental health practitioners working in GP service. Service users will be triaged collaboratively and a decision will be made in consultation with the referrer and with the use of a clinical tool, within the response time required.

This comprehensive, collaborative triage system will lead to comprehensive assessment clear onward facilitation of service users to the most appropriate care following assessment

The post holder will provide evidence based mental health assessments and/or signposting to alternative service provision for people who present requiring a specialist urgent mental health assessment. The post holder may offer follow-up appointments within the agreed timescale for intervention as part of the on-going assessment process.

LSCFT support flexible working, we believe that a positive work/life balance benefits NHS employees through improved health and wellbeing. We would consider working patterns such as term time, part time, compressed hours and flexi-time.

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