Nursing Assistant - Secure Care Division

Mersey Care NHS Foundation Trust; Sefton; On-site; GBP 20,000 - 28,000; Full time

Job summary

A leading healthcare provider in the UK is seeking mental health assistants to support service users in a secure care environment. The role involves providing direct care, assisting with daily activities, and observing the mental state of service users. Experience in mental health is essential, and candidates are encouraged to apply regardless of their background. This position offers a competitive retention premium for nursing assistants.

Benefits

Retention premium up to £4,034

Flexible working requests considered

Support for disadvantaged groups

Qualifications

• Experience in mental health settings.
• Ability to work within a multi-disciplinary team.
• Strong observational and reporting skills.

Responsibilities

• Provide direct care and observation of service users.
• Assist with daily living and recreational activities.
• Report observations to qualified staff regarding service users' conditions.

Skills

Communication skills

Empathy

Teamwork

Observation skills

Education

Relevant mental health experience

Job description

Mersey Care NHS Foundation Trust celebrates diversity and promotes equal opportunities; we are committed to challenging and eliminating racism and other forms of discrimination and advancing and promoting equality of opportunity in the provision of services and creating an inclusive environment for all employees. We believe that everyone has the right to be treated with dignity and respect. We take positive action to support disadvantaged groups and also particularly encourage applications from ethnically diverse, disabled and LGBTQIA+ people that are under-represented in our workforce. Furthermore we welcome applications from reservists and ex-armed forces personnel as we recognise the benefits of the values, skills, training and experience that they bring to their work with us. We encourage all applicants to share their equality information with us.

Overview

The division is responsible for specialised secure mental health and learning disability services, in low, medium and high secure settings for service users with a primary classification of mental illness, personality disorders, learning disabilities and autism. Working across the division as part of a multi-disciplinary team, you will contribute to the delivery of high standards of care and treatment to a complex group of service users. This is an exciting and rewarding opportunity to gain invaluable experience in a specialist forensic environment.

This is the perfect opportunity for those who have experience of working within a mental health setting and want to expand on their skills by working for a service that provides forensic and secure mental health services.

To support our "Grow Our Own" strategy and attract and retain talented staff within the Secure Care Division, a Recruitment & Retention premia is available. For nursing assistants, this premia is £600 or £4,034, depending on service allocation. Allocations will be determined by the service and the premia will reflect the amount for that clinical area.

Responsibilities

• + To carry out assigned duties, involving direct care and observation of service users under the guidance and indirect supervision of qualified staff.
• + To report to the qualified staff any observations made whilst providing care to service users activities and leisure, providing details of mental state and risk factors.
• + To work with service users on an individual and group basis as outlined in the care plan and as directed by the appropriate named lead professional.
• + To coordinate the assessment and delivery of a planned programme of care with guidance and indirect supervision from a qualified practitioner and to contribute to formal assessment and delivery of an individuals plan of care.
• + To assist with activities of daily living, social, recreational and occupational activities as agreed in the service user care plan.
• + To report general observations and provide feedback to a qualified practitioner both verbally and in written formats, if required. This should include any concerns arising from the service user physical or mental health.
• + To contribute to effective running of the service by providing and receiving information to/from other departments or services. Ensure this information is provided in the most effective way i.e. telephone, fax or in writing.
• + To assist service users with self-administration of oral medication and ensure any concerns / issues about medication are reported back to a qualified practitioner.
• + To use a variety of verbal and non-verbal skills to overcome communication barriers presented by service users due to their mental health needs.
• + To contribute to maintaining a safe environment for service user in the community (where appropriate).
• + To carry out specific duties that contributes to the assessment of service users as requested by a qualified practitioner.
• + To develop and maintain links with other agencies and services, both statutory and voluntary (where appropriate).
• + To use skills and techniques, to de-escalate situations where service users become physically or verbally aggressive.
• + To carry out observations and inform the Registered Nurse of any concerns. e.g. temperature, pulse, respiration, blood pressure, diet and fluid intake, weight as requested by a qualified practitioner.
• + To contribute to the development of risk management plans for service users by reporting, to the qualified practitioner any issues or concerns regarding service users behaviour / action towards themselves or others.
• + Respond to the changing needs of service users.
• + Control the assessments of implemented individual service users care plans.
• + To undertake and understand the support of observations as per policy (Levels 1- 4).

Additional information

Please ensure you check the email account from which you apply for all correspondence. All information regarding your application will come from apps.trac.jobs not NHS Jobs.

Only those applicants who demonstrate clearly how they meet our person specification will be shortlisted for interview.

As a Disability Confident Employer, we offer a guaranteed interview scheme for applicants who consider themselves to be disabled who meet the minimum (essential) criteria for the role in the person specification. If you would like your application to be considered under the Trust's guaranteed interview scheme you can indicate this in the personal information section of your online application form.

Should you require a reasonable adjustment to our recruitment process please email [e-mail] to ensure that measures can be put in place to support you.

We reserve the right to close any vacancies from further applications when we have received a minimum number of applications from which to make a shortlist. Please ensure you apply without delay if you wish to be considered for this role.

The Trust expects all post holders who require an enhanced DBS for their role subscribe to the DBS Update Service. You will be required to enrol for this service for a fee of £16 per year and maintain registration. Trans applicants who require a DBS check and do not want to reveal details of their previous identity can contact the DBS Sensitive Applications Team (01516761452 or email [e-mail]) with their application number once they have completed their DBS application form. The team can prevent any previous identity showing on the DBS Certificate, unless the applicant has a conviction under their previous details in which case this will need to be disclosed.

Applicants requiring sponsorship may wish to determine the likelihood of obtaining sponsorship for this position by assessing themselves against the criteria on the gov.uk website - https://www.gov.uk/check-uk-visa.

Flexible working requests will be considered for all roles.

Please be advised that the use of Artificial Intelligence on applications is monitored and if you choose to use this, you must declare this on your application form.

Please note: new entrants to the NHS will commence on the first pay point of the relevant band.

Mersey Care is one of the largest trusts providing physical health and mental health services in the North West, serving more than 1.4 million people across our region and are also commissioned for services that cover the North West, North Wales and the Midlands.

We offer specialist inpatient and community services that support physical and mental health and specialist inpatient mental health, learning disability, addiction and brain injury services. Mersey Care is one of only three trusts in the UK that offer high secure mental health facilities.

At the heart of all we do is our commitment to 'perfect care' - care that is safe, effective, positively experienced, timely, equitable and efficient. We support our staff to do the best job they can and work alongside service users, their families, and carers to design and develop future services together. We're currently delivering a programme of organisational and service transformation to significantly improve the quality of the services we provide and safely reduce cost as we do so.

Flexible working requests will be considered for all roles.