Mental Health Practitioner

LSCft; Lancaster; On-site; GBP 33,000 - 46,000; Full time

Job summary

Lancashire and South Cumbria NHS Foundation Trust seeks a Band 6 Mental Health Practitioner for the Home Treatment Team in Lancaster. You will work with a multidisciplinary team to assess, triage, and support service users in the community, aiming to avoid hospital admission and promote early discharge where possible.

The role covers Lancaster and surrounding areas, requiring flexible working across 7 days per week with long days. DBS clearance and UK professional registration are essential.

Qualifications

• Registered Mental Health Nurse or Registered Social Worker.
• Knowledge of crisis and contingency planning and how to apply it.
• Experience with care pathways for psychosis and non-psychosis and related interventions.

Responsibilities

• Provide comprehensive mental health assessments and triage.
• Signpost or onward facilitation to the appropriate mental health pathway.
• Collaborate with referrers (IRS, Acute Hospital, GP services) and multidisciplinary team.

Skills

Crisis triage

Multidisciplinary teamwork

Communication skills

Signposting

Assessment and triage

Education

Registered Mental Health Nurse

Registered Social Worker

Job description

Our Vision is to provide the best mental health, learning disability, autism, community, and physical health services for the populations we serve.

As an integrated Trust, Lancashire and South Cumbria NHS Foundation Trust (LSCFT) delivers a comprehensive range of services, including:

• Primary and secondary mental health care for children and adults, including specialist inpatient child and adolescent mental health provision, perinatal mental health, and forensic services with low and medium secure care.
• Specialist mental health inpatient care for individuals with learning disabilities, alongside specialist community support for children and adults with learning disabilities and autism, including intensive support.
• Extensive community physical health and well-being services for children and adults, covering prevention, treatment, rehabilitation, and long-term condition management.

The Trust was first established in 2002 and employs approximately 7,500 staff who provide care from more than 400 sites. The organisation offers opportunities for medics, mental health, general nurses, children’s nurses, allied health professionals, psychology, administration and clerical staff, apprentices and volunteers, as well as those specialising in learning disabilities and community physical health services.

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.

Main duties of the job

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.

Working for our organisation

LSCFT values diversity and inclusion, recognising that talent from varied backgrounds creates a flexible, creative, and effective workforce. We actively challenge discrimination and welcome applications from all, regardless of age, disability (including those with experience of accessing or caring for someone who has accessed mental health or learning disability services), ethnicity, gender, religion, belief, or sexual orientation.

Our aim is to reflect the communities we serve, so we particularly encourage applications from under-represented groups. If you’d like to discuss your application, please ask.

We also welcome individuals with lived experience relevant to the role or service area, as your insight brings authenticity to our services.

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.

The wellbeing of our people is at the heart of everything we do. We offer a wide range of resources, tools and support to help you thrive both in and out of work.

Detailed job description and main responsibilities

Please see attached the job description and person specification for more information about this role.

Person specification

Qualifications

• Registered Mental Health Nurse / Social worker

Knowledge

• Able to understand the difference between crisis planning and contingency planning and able to formulate explicit planning in these areas
• Knowledge, understanding and experience of the care pathways for psychosis and non psychosis and relevant interventions
• Understanding of how physical illness and substance misuse can affect the mental health

Experience

• Demonstrate the ability to work sensitively in a non judgemental way with service users who are in crisis
• Assertiveness skills in relation to bed management
• Ability and skills in undertaking robust psycho social urgent assessments of mental health service user needs

For all posts which require a Disclosure and Barring Service (DBS) check please be aware of the Disclosure and Barring Service Code of Practice, a copy of which is available by logging on to the DBS website. If the post is subject to DBS disclosure, a charge will be made to the successful candidate(s).

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.