Senior Occupational Therapist

NHS Jobs; Northallerton; Remote; GBP 34,000 - 46,000; Full time

Job summary

South Tees Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust in Northallerton is seeking a Senior Occupational Therapist with a rehabilitation focus to join the Community Therapy team at the Friarage Hospital. The post involves integrated health and social care to maximise independence and safe discharge planning.

You will assess and plan care for adults in hospital, home, and community settings, provide supervision to junior staff, and contribute to service development within a busy multi-disciplinary team.

Qualifications

• Detailed holistic assessments and goal setting for adults requiring rehabilitation.
• Experience in community-based rehab and reablement services.
• Ability to work in a multi-disciplinary team.
• Knowledge of professional standards and ethics.

Responsibilities

• Lead and participate in holistic assessments to formulate and review therapy goals.
• Provide rehabilitation and independence-focused care in hospital, home, or community settings.
• Work with social care colleagues for joint supervision and smooth patient pathways.
• Contribute to clinical governance, quality improvement and staff training.
• Support timely discharges and prevent avoidable admissions where possible.

Skills

Clinical assessment

Rehabilitation knowledge

Communication skills

Interdisciplinary teamwork

Clinical governance

Education

Degree in Occupational Therapy

HCPC registration

Post-registration training

Job description

South Tees Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust

Senior Occupational Therapist

The closing date is 04 October 2026

We are seeking a motivated, flexible, skilled Occupational Therapist with a special interest in Rehabilitation to join our Community Therapy team, based at the Friarage Hospital, Northallerton.

The service is currently integrating with social care to deliver an integrated therapy and reablement service, of which will be jointly managed and supervised between health and social care.

The therapy team provide clinical assessment, intervention and oversight of patients being discharged from hospital with reablement support, admission to bed based therapy provision and patients who are in their own home and require a period of rehabilitation following a change to their functional ability, impacting on safety, carer support, independence and emotional well being.

Therapy staff work closely alongside locality reablement teams, bed based provisions, hospital discharge teams, social care, voluntary agencies and other therapy teams to ensure the patients receive the best care and rehabilitation to improve independence and reduce reliance on care where possible.

Main duties of the job

To complete detailed holistic assessments and then formulate, evaluate and review individualised therapy goals for adults who require rehabilitation to meet their optimal functional goals

The role will operate as part of Hambleton and Richmond Community Therapies to provide rehabilitation and maximise independence for adults who are placed in either short term rehabilitation beds, permanent care placements or their own homes

To work closely with social care colleagues and deliver joint supervision to generic support / therapy assistants

To be part of a clinical triage rota to provide clinical expertise in relation to the triage of all referrals into the service and either action or forward on as appropriate

To take a lead role as part of the duty team with regards to patient flow and accessing the correct service at the right time.

To provide effective and efficient clinical skills to patients, as part of the Community Therapy Service within the framework of clinical governance

To take an active role in service development and implement into daily clinical practice

To support with clinical training for social care colleagues as part of the integration between health and social care.

To support, when required, timely discharges into rehabilitation placements and prevent avoidable admission to hospital or long-term care.

About us

South Tees Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust and North Tees and Hartlepool NHS Foundation Trust have come together to form University Hospitals Tees. As a result, post holders may be required to work across sites within both organisations.

Across University Hospitals Tees, our ambition is to be the best place to work, ensuring we have the right staff in the right roles at the right time to deliver outstanding patient care and experience.

We are committed to supporting our staff through an inclusive and supportive working environment, offering health and wellbeing initiatives, staff benefits, and opportunities for personal and professional development.

We are committed to fostering an inclusive recruitment process and welcome applications from suitably qualified candidates, including those who first language is not English.

We support the 'Making Every Contact Count' approach to behaviour change in the promotion of health and wellbeing of individuals and communities.

Job responsibilities

It is imperative that the post holder is a responsible and respectful team player but will also be expected to work under their own initiative as an autonomous practitioner.

Demonstrate excellent interpersonal skills towards members of the multi-disciplinary team, other agencies, patients, families and carers

Ensure excellent verbal and non verbal communication skills with patients, carers and relatives and especially where there may be communication difficulties.

Work collaboratively for the best interest of the patients and their families, with all health, social care and voluntary agencies.

Work as an efficient part of the wider MDT to support the Community Teams with the collaborative of Growing the Friarage and Community

To be responsible for the delivery of Occupational Therapy assessments and treatments to a high professional standard in accordance with Professional Standards and Code of Ethics laid down by the College of Occupational Therapy.

To be responsible for maintaining a high standard of therapy services and develop quality improvements appropriate to the needs of the service.

To develop and deliver training, supervision and development of band 5, support staff, students and other health and social care workers as appropriate around area of expertise.

To act as a clinical mentor to junior members of staff.

To develop and improve competence in self and acquire new skills and apply to practice.

To autonomously manage, within appropriate professional guidelines, a caseload of clients with complex needs within departmental, home and community environments.

To respond to identified needs through critical thinking, consideration of a range of options using sound clinical reasoning and professional judgement and communicating these to clients in order to reach a decision, in collaboration with the client (or his representatives) about how to meet those needs.

To provide clinical expertise within own specialist area, with particular expertise in rehabilitation

To work flexibly and support the wider therapy teams across Hambleton and Richmondshire, including clinical cover as required to support patient flow. This would include Hambleton and Richmond community teams and the Friary therapy team.

Administrative Responsibilities

To promote and maintain health and safety in the workplace and attend all mandatory training.

To be involved in health promotion initiatives.

Person Specification

Knowledge and Skills

• oEvidence of audit and participation in service development
• oEvidence of specialised knowledge gained through formal courses and Continuing Professional Development
• Basic IT skills
• oTo display excellent communication skills, communicating complex, sensitive and contentious information to patients, carers, and colleagues
• oTo demonstrate high level clinical reasoning skills when dealing with complex patients
• oAbility to work under pressure
• Experience working as a Band 6
• oExperience of supervision and people management
• oAudit and research experience.
• oEvidence post-registration at higher level in a specialist subject matter
• oTeaching skills and previous student supervision

Qualifications and Training

• oTo hold a Degree or Diploma in Occupational Therapy
• Current HCPC registration
• oAdditional relevant training such as short courses

Experience

• oExperience working as an Occupational Therapist within the NHS
• oExperience of working in a rehabilitation setting
• oExperience working at a band 6 level.

Personal attributes

• oTo respond and adapt to the changing needs of the service
• oTo act appropriately in distressing or emotional circumstances
• oAccess to suitable transport for travel in relation to the post

Disclosure and Barring Service Check

This post is subject to the Rehabilitation of Offenders Act (Exceptions Order) 1975 and as such it will be necessary for a submission for Disclosure to be made to the Disclosure and Barring Service (formerly known as CRB) to check for any previous criminal convictions.

South Tees Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust