practitioner

Avon And Wiltshire Mental Health Partnership Nhs Trust; Devizes; On-site; GBP 35,000 - 45,000; Full time

Job summary

A mental health care organization in the United Kingdom is seeking a Senior Practitioner. This role involves leading clinical teams in providing care to complex service users, supporting staff development, and ensuring quality improvement initiatives. The ideal candidate will have relevant healthcare qualifications and experience in managing high-risk situations. The position promotes diversity and inclusion, supporting a wide range of community needs while focusing on clinical leadership and effective team collaboration.

Benefits

Flexible working arrangements

Supportive and inclusive work environment

Qualifications

• Experience in managing complex and high-risk situations.
• Ability to provide leadership support to a team.
• Familiarity with quality improvement projects.

Responsibilities

• Provide clinical leadership and consultation to staff.
• Lead training and development for team members.
• Manage treatment programs for complex service users.
• Ensure effective treatment and safety plans are in place.

Skills

Leadership

Clinical supervision

Team collaboration

Communication

Education

Relevant healthcare qualification

Professional registration

Job description

Role Overview

The senior practitioner will be involved with and support complex and high risk situations; experience of managing and leading on complex cases which require a MDT approach is essential. The post-holder will provide leadership support to the team and coordinate day-to-day activities alongside the shift co-ordinator, as well as being actively involved with treatment of the most complex service users on the caseload. This would be done alongside support from the wider leadership team. The senior practitioner would support the team to work effectively and in line with best practice, providing consultation, training and supervision to staff, including reflective practice sessions.

The post holder will lead on quality improvement projects and support the team to learn from incidents. They will also coordinate with the team manager to ensure a culture of shared ownership and continuous improvement.

Responsibilities

• Provide clinical leadership, supervision, support and consultation to nursing staff and MDT staff in line with the relevant clinical pathway as per operational procedures.
• Take a clinical lead on the training and development of staff both within the team and across the wider acute hospital footprint.
• Support band 4-6 practitioners in the assessment of complex service users.
• Provide a service to inpatient colleagues, supporting timely admissions and discharges.
• Deputise for the Team Manager in their absence and take on delegated management duties as required.
• Is responsible for the development, delivery and review of comprehensive and complex treatment programmes using evidence-based frameworks, including strategies to manage risk for service users with complex needs and carers.
• Plan, deliver and evaluate defined advanced specialist therapeutic interventions within the sphere of expertise.
• Oversee and deliver a range of activities to improve carers' ability to support the service user and enable their relationship.
• Lead, in partnership with the team manager, to ensure the service develops and maintains excellent clinical standards and effective caseload supervision underpinned by robust supervision processes.
• Ensure that, across the team, effective treatment and safety plans are in place for service users and carers, considering risks to service users, carers, the organisation, staff and the public.
• Develop and maintain good partnership working with other services throughout all treatment episodes, including liaison with primary care, secondary and social care.
• Maintain communication with a range of people/services/agencies about complex matters in a way that facilitates resolving difficult issues for the benefit of service users/carer and the service.
• Represent the organisation in a range of settings, presenting, facilitating or explaining as appropriate and dealing with any questions or difficulties that arise.
• Build and lead others to build hope-inspiring relationships with service users, focusing on strengths and aspirations to create meaningful personal wellbeing plans.
• Support the team manager in developing systems and processes for effective management and monitoring of the team caseload, ensuring time is prioritised effectively.
• Promote a whole team approach to shared ownership of the caseload.
• Regularly monitor and evaluate treatment programmes for service users and carers, making clinical/practice decisions regarding ongoing needs and offering supervision to others.
• Protect individuals from abuse and harm in line with local safeguarding policies, reviewing protection plans and management strategies with others, ensuring appropriate information sharing.
• Provide a leadership role within the team in the absence of the Team Manager, providing cover as required.
• Work with the Team Manager to ensure continuing improvements to the service in line with organisational goals.
• Maintain the single health and social care record, ensuring both paper and electronic records are kept up to date in accordance with professional and organisational standards.
• Report and record all activity relating to information reporting and performance requirements within agreed timeframes.
• Participate in and deliver management, caseload and clinical supervision in accordance with trust policy.
• Develop own practice in line with professional qualifications and develop others, providing effective feedback, therapeutic supervision, coaching and appraisal.
• Adhere to professional codes of conduct and maintain required skills and competencies.
• Promote and maintain best practice in health, safety and security, undertaking assessments and taking action where required.
• Work with the Team Manager to develop a culture that promotes equality and values diversity.
• Lead and practice effective team working.

Diversity and Inclusion

We are proud to be fostering a diverse workforce that reflects our communities. A key commitment is improving staff representation from Black, Asian and Minority Ethnic communities, those from LGBTQ+ communities, people with lived‑experience of mental health conditions, and people living with disabilities. We are a Disability Confident Employer offering a guaranteed interview to Disabled applicants who meet the essential criteria, including a range of disabilities and neurodivergent conditions such as autism, ADHD, sensory, physical and learning disabilities. We encourage applications from people who wish to work on a flexible basis, recognising that flexibility may take many forms of working patterns and hours; we aim to meet their needs and those of our service users.

How to Apply

If you think you have the skills required for this exciting role, we would love to hear from you!

Working for Our Organisation

We are AWP (Avon and Wiltshire Mental Health Partnership NHS Trust): a diverse organisation with over 5,000 dedicated staff providing inpatient and community-based mental health care. We provide services from a range of locations to approximately 1.8 million people living in Bath and North East Somerset (B&NES), Bristol, North Somerset, South Gloucestershire, Swindon, across the county of Wiltshire and in parts of Dorset. Our outstanding people promote mental health and wellbeing. The expertise and resources within AWP are dedicated to a person‑centred approach for our users and for all employees. We recognise that happy and fulfilled employees give better care.

AWP is committed to support and create a positive research and evidence-based environment and culture, which can have a beneficial impact on everyone who works for the organisation and on the care we provide to those who use our services. At AWP we actively encourage applicants from all backgrounds; we are particularly keen to encourage applications from people from Black, Asian and minority ethnic backgrounds, those with disabilities and from the LGBTQ+ community. We want people to bring their unique blend of experiences, backgrounds, perspectives and knowledge to AWP, as diversity makes us stronger.