Senior Mental Health Practitioner

Transformation Unit; St Helens; Remote; GBP 40,000 - 48,000; Full time

Job summary

Mersey Care NHS Foundation Trust seeks a Senior Mental Health Practitioner to join the Later Life and Memory Service (LLAMS) in St Helens. You will be part of a busy, multi-disciplinary team dedicated to high-quality care for older adults with cognitive impairment or dementia.

The role involves conducting assessments, managing medication reviews, and providing support to carers. A Registered Mental Health Nurse with post-registration experience is preferred, with leadership and supervisory

Qualifications

• Evidence of post registration CPD.
• Working towards Masters level education.
• Minimum 2 years post registration mental health experience.
• Experience of leadership and supervising staff.
• Ability to work autonomously and with other agencies.

Responsibilities

• Provide assessments/reviews and develop treatment plans for service users on caseload.
• Act as named professional/key worker and coordinate care between services.
• Hold a caseload of people with dementia or older adult mental health needs.
• Participate in MDT meetings and training opportunities; attend supervision.
• Provide advice and support for service users and carers.
• Support student nurses in the team; liaise with colleagues to coordinate care.
• Monitor and support medication management; contribute to service improvement.
• Lead and participate in change and quality improvement within LLAMS.

Skills

Interpersonal skills

Leadership

Multi-disciplinary working

Education

Registered Mental Health Nurse

Masters level in progress

Post-registration CPD

Job description

Main area Later Life and Memory Service (LLAMS) - Mental Health Services Grade Band 6 Contract Permanent Hours Full time - 37.5 hours per week Job ref 350-MHC8355798

Employer Mersey Care NHS Foundation Trust Employer type NHS Site Harry Blackman House Town St Helens Salary £39,959 - £48,117 Per Annum Salary period Yearly Closing 15/11/2026 23:59 Interview date 23/11/2026

Band 6

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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.

Using AI to support your application

AI can be a useful tool to support the preparation of your application. However, all information submitted must be accurate, truthful and reflect your own skills, experience and achievements. Applications should include personal examples demonstrating how you meet the person specification. Applications that appear mostly or fully generated by AI, without clear personal examples linked to the person specification, may be rejected.For tips and guidance, please refer to our applicant guidance.

Identity verification

Candidates attending interview will be required to provide original photographic identification where available. Where suitable photographic identification is not available, a photograph will be taken at interview for identity verification purposes. Successful candidates will also be required to complete digital identity and right to work checks via TrustID, including facial recognition and image matching technology, to verify their identity throughout the recruitment and onboarding process. Identity verification will also be undertaken on the first day of employment in line with NHS employment check requirements.

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Job overview

We are seeking to recruit a full time Senior Mental Health Practitioner to join our Later Life and Memory Service in St Helens. We are a forward thinking, friendly and busy team aiming for high quality service provision to older adults in our area. You would join a busy, well established team who are supportive and welcoming. The job itself can be challenging but rewarding and provides job satisfaction.

We would like you to have some demonstrable experience of working within mental health setting and / or with adults with a dementia diagnosis and be keen to develop your professional skills in this clinical area.

The role will involve supporting with assessments of older adults in our care, medication reviews and liaison/support to carers. There will be an expectation that the SNP would be able to develop positive working relationships with the wider care network.

We would encourage applicants who have a professional registration as a mental health nurse to apply.

Encouragement is given should you wish to discuss this vacancy further.

Main duties of the job

The Older adults mental health hub (LLAMS) supports individuals who have are undergoing assessment and have established diagnosis of cognitive impairment/dementia. The team is a busy and skilled multi-disciplinary group which actively promotes close partnership working within the wider community.

If you feel you possess the values of Mersey Care NHS Trust we would welcome an application from you. Applicants should hold the professional qualification of a Registered Mental Health Nurse and have a passion for working in this field.

You will have excellent interpersonal skills that will enable you to support service users and their families and challenge, motivate, influence and inspire your colleagues at all levels.

Working for our organisation

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.

Detailed job description and main responsibilities

The post holder will be based within the LLAMS team and will :

Provide assessments/reviews and develop treatment plans for service users on caseload

Act as named professional/key worker and coordinate care between services

Hold a caseload of people with a dementia diagnosis or older adult mental health needs.

Participate in team meetings, MDT meetings and training opportunities

Provide advice and support for service users and carers

Support of student nurses in the team

Liaise with colleagues and coordinate care for service users on caseload

Support and monitor the service user whilst commencing medication

Work collaboratively with other members of the MDT

Be part of the duty team rota and triage referrals appropriately.

Attend regular supervision and team meetings

Participate in training opportunities

Support people with complex needs and provide advice and guidance as people’s needs change

Monitor medication

Person specification

Qualifications

• Evidence of post registration CPD
• Working towards Masters level education

Experience

• Minimum 2 years post registration mental health experience
• Evidence of leadership and management skills
• Evidence of supervising staff
• Ability to work autonomously across the organisation/boundaries and with other agencies
• Experience of working in partnership with other agencies and service users and carers
• Experience of audit/research and working knowledge of clinical governance
• Experience in change management and policy formulation
• Experience of using Incident Reporting Systems e.g. RADAR
• Experience of undertaking and involvement in Serious Untoward Incident Reviews
• Evidence of experience of working with a range of people with mental health problems in a variety of health care settings

Knowledge

• Knowledge of mental health legislation, CPA, safeguarding, equality and human rights, clinical governance and professional codes of conduct
• Proven knowledge of relevant mental health legislation
• Demonstrate knowledge in the concepts of mentorship, preceptorship and supervision and ability to provide education and supervision to junior staff
• Demonstrate a good knowledge of professional Codes of Conduct and Staffs’ responsibility to identify gaps in their knowledge base

Skills

• Able to communicate effectively both verbally and non-verbally
• Being responsive and flexible, seeing change as an opportunity to improve services
• Ability to lead the process of standard setting and audit
• Professional attitude
• Possess excellent listening and negotiation skills and leadership skills
• Excellent oral and written skills
• Excellent interpersonal and organisational skills
• The ability to lead change management
• Ability to contribute to developing care excellence within the ward / team area
• Ability to work within a divisional management team, be able to generate own workload and ability to work to strict deadlines
• Risk assessment and management
• Ability to build purposeful relationships with a range of both internal and external to the organisation
• Leadership and supervision
• Multidisciplinary working

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The Trust expects all post holders who require an enhanced DBS for their role and work in Children’s & Young People services to subscribe to the DBS Update Service. You will be required to enrol for this service for a fee of £15 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.

The Trust uses TrustID digital identity verification, including facial matching technology, to confirm that identity documents belong to the individual attending interview and commencing employment.

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

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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.

Name Michelle Hall Job title Clinical Team Manager Email address [e-mail] Telephone number 01744 415615 Additional information

Elizabeth Reeve

ACP

01744 415615

email: [e-mail]