Occupational Therapy Team Lead - Orthopaedics

Royal United Hospitals Bath NHS Foundation Trust; Bath; On-site; GBP 49,000 - 57,000; Full time

Job summary

Royal United Hospitals Bath NHS Foundation Trust in Bath is seeking an experienced Occupational Therapy Team Lead (Band 7) for Orthopaedics. You will lead a multidisciplinary team of OTs and PTs, contribute to elective and hip fracture care, and drive service improvements to enhance patient outcomes.

The role includes supervising junior staff, participating in clinical governance, and supporting a 7-day service with flexible hours to meet service demands.

Qualifications

• Leadership experience at band 6 or equivalent is required.
• Excellent communications skills and ability to work autonomously.
• Experience supervising junior staff and students.
• Knowledge of hip fracture and orthopedic care preferred.
• Aware of clinical governance and quality issues.

Responsibilities

• Lead a team of Occupational Therapists and Physiotherapists in orthopaedics.
• Contribute to wider Adult Therapies Department.
• Support 7-day service through varied/shifting hours.
• Promote patient safety and experience through service improvements.
• Provide specialist input within the team.

Skills

Leadership

Communication

Team supervision

Clinical governance

Education

Diploma/degree in Occupational Therapy

HCPC registration

Job description

Employer Royal United Hospitals Bath NHS Foundation Trust Employer type NHS Site Royal United Hospital Bath Town Bath Salary £49,387 - £56,515 pro rata, per annum Salary period Yearly Closing 22/09/2026 23:59

Occupational Therapy Team Lead - Orthopaedics

Band 7

Job overview

We are on a mission to improve the responsiveness and proactivity of our therapy services at the RUH. We are looking for someone who is passionate about acute Occupational Therapy in the orthopaedic setting to help us improve key aspects of our hip fracture and elective orthopaedic service.

As well as service improvement this role includes leading a team of Physiotherapists and Occupational Therapists as well as contributing to the wider function of the Adult Therapies Department.

Main duties of the job

Demonstrable leadership experience at band 6 or equivalent is required as a minimum for this post. The successful applicant will need excellent communications skills and will need to demonstrate suitable knowledge and experience in this specialty, enabling them to work autonomously at a high level, and to provide highly specialist input within the team.

Supervision of band 6 and band 5 Occupational Therapists as well as Physiotherapists will form a key aspect of this role. Alongside the leadership aspect of this position, clinical expertise will be nurtured and developed with specialty training as required. We are looking for a keen clinician who will strive to improve the patient experience as well as ensure the safety and well-being of our staff by way of service improvement projects.

Working hours are spread from Monday-Sunday, as part of the commitment to our 7-day service, enabling a varied and flexible working week. As part of our commitment to you and your career development, we provide ongoing training opportunities both in-house and externally.

Working for our organisation

At the RUH we put people at the heart of what we do, working together as one team to make a difference for our patients, each other, and our community. No matter what your role is, we value everyone’s contribution in supporting the exceptional, person-centred care we pride ourselves on.

We are committed to creating a compassionate and inclusive environment. This can be seen in our growing community of staff networks – celebrating successes and creating opportunities to listen and learn. We value our differences, champion kindness and civility, and truly believe that diversity makes us stronger.

A culture of learning, developing and innovating is the thread that runs throughout our whole organisation. We want to support you to thrive, taking your career to its full potential.

We value staff wellbeing, with a well-established programme of support. We believe in a holistic approach spanning all aspects of living a healthy life, including physical, emotional, spiritual and financial wellbeing. We’ve even got a pool!

Detailed job description and main responsibilities

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

Person specification

Qualifications and training

• Diploma/degree in Occupational Therapy
• HCPC registration
• Relevant examples of CPD within the past 12 months
• Membership of the RCOT
• Member of special interest group

Knowledge & experience

• Advanced knowledge of broad range of conditions in specialist area such as bracing, single handed care or complex delirium post surgery
• Experience of working as part of an Occupational Therapy team and/or multi-disciplinary team within orthopedic setting
• Involvement in relevant audit, research and understanding quality issues
• Experience of supervising more junior staff/students
• Knowledge of validated assessment tools and outcome measures such as hip fracture database
• Knowledge of the workings of community therapy services and intermediate care services

Values

• Treats everyone as an individual
• motivated and proactive / shows initiative
• open to change and willing to learn

Specific skills

• To be able to present information, written or orally, in a clear and logical manner and keep accurate and legible patient notes
• To understand clinical governance and its implications for services, including experience of quality issues and audit

Physical skills and emotional effort

• To carry out assessments and treatments of patients for several periods with moderate to intense physical effort whilst carrying out concurrent activities
• To have experience of working in a stressful environment and with emotional or aggressive patients and carers
• To deal sensitively with patients who have high levels of anxiety and aggression caused by pain, dementia or limited mobility
• To be able to frequently care for critically/terminally/ chronically ill patients and deal with distressing and difficult circumstances often giving unwelcome news regarding limited expectations from rehabilitation
• To be able to work alone in domiciliary settings and during the on-call service, assessing and managing risk

Please note - Due to recent changes in UK immigration and visa rules applicants who do not currently have the right to work in the UK may not be considered unless an alternative right to work solution can be provided. Candidates requiring sponsorship (or will need sponsorship at the end of a current visa e.g. those with graduate visa's) should reviewthe eligibility criteria on the gov.uk website before applying: Prove your right to work to an employer: Overview - GOV.UK

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.