Senior Mental Health Practitioner

NHS; England; Hybrid; GBP 35,000 - 45,000; Full time

Job summary

A reputable healthcare trust in the United Kingdom is seeking a Senior Mental Health Practitioner for their First Point of Contact Centre. This role involves triaging mental health referrals, providing essential support to patients, and supervising a team of practitioners. Ideal candidates should have registered mental health practitioner status and extensive experience in mental health care, showcasing strong communication and resilience skills. This position offers flexible working options and a chance to significantly impact patients' lives.

Qualifications

• Significant post qualification experience in mental health or related areas.
• Sound experience of first line assessments including assessment of patient safety.
• Proven skills in multi-disciplinary working.

Responsibilities

• Triage mental health referrals coming into the Trust.
• Provide mental health support and identify services for patients.
• Handle a wide range of calls from patients.

Skills

Mental health experience

Communication skills

Resilience

Multi-disciplinary teamwork

Education

Registered Mental Health Practitioner status

Job description

Go back Gloucestershire Health and Care NHS Foundation Trust

Senior Mental Health Practitioner FPCC

The closing date is 15 February 2026

Are you someone who thrives in a fast paced environment?Do you have a passion for being the first point of contact for those in need of mental health support when they need us the most? Can you provide a voice of reassurance and support? If so, we are looking for individuals like you to make a real difference!

Using your experience, you will be duty clinician and supervisor to a shift that consists of Band 7 Clinical Leads, Band 6 Senior Mental Health Practitioners, Band 5 Mental Health Practitioners Band 3 Call Handlers, and students, supervising, mentoring and coaching them to develop their skills and playing a key role in the development of the service.

Our First Point of Contact Centre (FPCC) is a priority one urgent response telephone service launched in 2019. Since then it has consistently demonstrated itself to be an integral part of our mental health services; we've improved access to mental health services for individuals who need it, whilst reducing demands on care and treatment delivery services. We are continuing to evolve and build our team and the support we offer as part of the development of the National Mental Health NHS 111 response model. Which involves 24/7 working, including night shifts.

Main duties of the job

Forget caseloads and case management. In the FPCC your skills and expertise will be in triaging patients at the point of contact, providing mental health support and identifying what service will best meet their needs moving forwards. The spectrum of mental health needs varies significantly; you will have the ability to offer advice, guidance and support for mental health issues, with a routine, urgent or crisis response, and ways this can be managed and improved. Equally, you'll have the ability to respond to urgent referrals with more acute needs and higher risks in the community

Handling a wide range of calls and thriving amid the challenges this presents, requires an outstanding amount of resilience and emotional strength as you will be supporting unwell and upset patients at their time of need. Your support will make a difference to lives and requires people who can be there for those that need it, sometimes in the face of adversity and trauma.

We're currently recruiting for a variety of shift patterns including:

Day Shifts/Long Day Shifts

• 7am to 8pm
• 9am - 10pm
• 7am - 3pm
• 2pm - 10pm

Night shifts -

• 21:30hrs - 07:30hrs

Flexible working options can be considered if this fits with the individual and service requirements

About us

We have a skilled and dedicated workforce of over 5000 colleagues working in a diverse range of services over 55 sites and within people's homes. We strive to enable a welcoming workplace culture that builds and celebrates civility, inclusivity and diversity, while providing a sense of belonging and trust.

Annual staff surveys, regular Pulse surveys and other engagement opportunities provide our people with lots of opportunity to tell us about their experiences of working with us. In the latest staff survey, 61% of colleagues gave us their views. It was great to hear that:

72% of colleagues would recommend the Trust as a place to work, ranking us 1st for Provider Trusts in the South West region on this question.

76% would recommend the standard of care provided in our services if a friend or relative needed treatment, also ranking us 1st in the South West region.

81% said that care of patients and service users is the Trust's priority, compared with an average in comparable NHS Trusts in England of 64%.

This high‑level overview shows we are in a healthy position, with higher scores than average for comparable organisations, alongside a great response rate, indicating good staff engagement. However, we also know we have plenty of room for improvement in many areas. To that end, we continue to prioritise and invest in our commitment to genuinely becoming a Great Place to Work with consistent top‑quartile performance in the annual staff survey and Pulse surveys.

Job responsibilities

You’ll be part of the team that provides the first stage in the Trust’s care navigation system receiving requests using contact methods, including letters, e‑mail and telephone.

We provide a central resource for referrers and Trust staff to ensure the effective receipt and subsequent processing of referrals into our services. We further provide effective signposting to services external to the Trust.

We accept routine, urgent and crisis referrals, each having a specific pathway to follow.

We provide an effective first point of contact, a link with primary and secondary services, partner agencies and organisations outside of the trust.

The service focus is to ensure callers or requests are directed to the appropriate person/resource in the Trust in the most effective manner. Where the request is for advice or a specialist opinion, the centre staff will link the request to either internal or external sources in a timely manner. The intention will be to leave the person making the request, feeling valued and satisfied with the outcome, before ending the contact. Where an immediate response for advice/specialist opinion is not available staff will work to an agreed response time, which will be shared with the person making the request.

You will have support from Senior Health Practitioners colleagues (Band 6) and the Operational Manager to help your development and you’ll be able to share your knowledge and experience with our Call Handlers (Band 3) and Mental Health Practitioners (Band 5).

• The post holder will be part of the Gloucestershire Health and Care NHS Foundation Trust First Point of Contact Centre (FPCC) and will manage and triage mental health referrals coming in to the Trust.
• The service is a professional referral service accepting telephone, letter, or e‑mail referrals from patients, carers, GPs, Health Care Professionals within mental health working, police, ambulance staff, and some external agencies this list is not exhaustive.
• The practitioners within the team are responsible for initial screening, triaging and the allocation of referrals to the appropriate service within the Trust or signposting to a relevant external service.
• The post holder will be responsible for triaging referrals, routine and urgent and crisis made to the Trust and directing them to the most appropriate service.

Full qualifications, training & experience requirements for the role are underlined in the Job Description/Person Specification.

Please refer to the Additional Information attachment before submitting your application

Person Specification

Qualifications

• Registered Mental Health Practitioner status or Registered Practitioner with significant mental health experience (nursing, allied health, and social care professionals) registered with a governing body for example the NMC

Lenghth and Nature of Experience

• Demonstrable and significant post qualification experience in mental health or related areas
• Sound experience of first line assessments including assessment of patient safety
• Proven skills in multi-disciplinary working, with experience of communicating across teams, stat and non-stat agencies and GP’s.

Professional/Managerial/Specialist Knowledge

• Sound understanding of the requirements of primary care and secondary care
• A sound understanding of the Mental Health Act and other associated legislation
• Experience of using psychological treatments e.g. CBT/Anxiety management ...
• A good understanding of other community/voluntary facilities that may