Senior Practitioner (Social Worker)

Transformationunitgm; London; On-site; GBP 54,000 - 61,000; Full time

Job summary

An exciting opportunity to join a leading mental health service provider as a Senior Practitioner. You will provide clinical leadership to a dedicated team, ensuring high-quality, person-centred care to adults recovering from psychosis. This role includes supervisory responsibilities and contributes to the operational management of the service.

Benefits

Flexible working arrangements

Relocation support up to £10,000

Qualifications

• Must have relevant professional registration.
• Experience in secondary community mental health care required.
• Demonstrated ability to undertake mental health assessments.

Responsibilities

• Provide clinical leadership to EQUIP staff.
• Manage and supervise Band 6 nursing/social work staff.
• Participate in day-to-day operational management.

Skills

Clinical Leadership

Patient Communication

Multi-disciplinary Collaboration

Education

First or Master's degree in relevant field

Relevant professional registration (RMN, Social Work, Occupational Therapy)

Job description

Main area Mental Health - Early Intervention in Psychosis Specialism Grade Band 7 Contract 6 months (Fixed Term Contract) Hours Full time - 37.5 hours per week (Mon - Fri, 9am - 5pm) Job ref 363-CH7146442

Employer East London NHS Foundation Trust Employer type NHS Site Vivienne Cohen House Town London Salary £54,320 - £60,981 per annum Inc HCAs Salary period Yearly Closing 20/06/2025 23:59

Band 7

ELFT has long been recognised as a centre of excellence for mental and health care, innovation and improvement. So it is a very exciting time for you to come and work for us. Our mission is to make a positive difference to people's lives by improving quality of life for all we serve. Our values are: We Care, We Respect, We are Inclusive – so we are looking for people who live and breathe these qualities when supporting service users and carers, and in their relationships with colleagues in the Trust and our partner organisations.

Job overview

EQUIP provides an assertive and responsive service to adults aged 18 – 65 for up to 3 years during their recovery from a first episode of psychosis. The service covers the City of London and London Borough of Hackney. Emphasis is placed on maximising wellbeing and on social, psychological, physical and educational/vocational recovery. The team works to standards set for early intervention in psychosis teams and participates in the annual National Clinical Audit on Psychosis. The team also works closely with the early detection team, HEADS UP, which provides support to those who are at risk of developing psychosis, and actively connects with local community groups in order to improve detection rates of this group.

Main duties of the job

The Senior Practitioner role within the Service provides clinical leadership to EQUIP staff, ensuring that the service provided is high quality and person-centred. Each Senior Practitioner will provide professional and line management supervision to Band 6 nursing and/or social work staff, as well as carrying a small caseload of complex cases. They will participate in a duty senior rota, including chairing the daily RAG meeting, providing support and guidance to duty workers and other members of the MDT, and participating in allocation of work. They will also chair the clinical, and other, meetings as required. They will provide support to the Operational Lead in providing day-to-day operational management, contributing to the development of policy and practice, and deputising for the Operational Lead as required. It is intended that the service will devleop 2 geographically aligned sub-teams, each co-led by 2 senior practitioners.

Working for our organisation

Our mission is to make a positive difference to people's lives by improving the quality of life for all we serve. Our values are: We Care, We Respect, We are Inclusive – so we are looking for people who live and breathe these qualities when supporting service users and carers, and in their relationships with colleagues in the Trust and our partner organisations.

Detailed job description and main responsibilities

To form effective working relationships with:

• Patients, their networks and carers
• Operational Lead & other members of the MDT
• Colleagues within the Early Intervention inpatient ward
• Colleagues within the Neighbourhoods, Assessment and Complex Needs Services
• Partner agencies, including primary care services, local authority services and voluntary agencies
• Colleagues within other services, such as the Crisis Pathway and Inpatient Services
• Staff in other NHS Trusts

Person specification

Qualifications

• Relevant professional registration (RMN, Social Work, Occupational Therapy)
• Evidence of continuing professional development
• First or master’s degree level or evidence of study toward qualification

Experience

• Substantial experience of providing secondary community mental health care
• Experience of multi-disciplinary working
• Experience of supervising and appraising staff
• Experience of deputising and leading an MDT in the absence of the manager

Knowledge and Skills

• Knowledge of the presentation of mental health problems in adult mental health secondary care
• Knowledge of current best practice within early intervention in psychosis services, in order support to adults recovering from a first episode psychosis as well as other mental health issues, and of At Risk Mental State
• Understanding of relevant legislation (e.g. Mental Health Act 1983, Mental Capacity Act 2005, Human Rights Act 1998, Care Act 2014) and policy (e.g. safeguarding children, safeguarding adults)
• Understanding of the principles of collaborative working and care planning, ensuring clients and families are as fully involved and participative as is possible
• Understanding of the principles of clinical governance
• Understanding of clinical audit and research in Mental Health Care for adults and in first episode psychosis
• Knowledge of equal opportunities policies and practice and how they affect staff and service users
• Understanding of working across organisational boundaries
• Ability to undertake mental health assessments in a professional and sensitive manner
• Ability to communicate with service users, families/ carers and colleagues across agencies effectively
• Ability to negotiate and lead across professional boundaries
• Ability to identify best practice and develop action plans to resolve poor practice
• Ability to challenge traditional methods of practice in a constructive manner

Making Things Better

Quality Improvement is a key part of our work to improve our services and refine how we do things. We have a global reputation for our quality improvement work and we don’t stand still! So we offer a fantastic opportunity for our staff to learn, lead and contribute towards improving our services.

We launched our Five Year Strategy in April 2018, which identified four main strategic outcomes to improve: population health outcomes, experience of care, staff experience and improve value. This complements the NHS Long Term Strategy and sets out our direction of travel.

Our Community

We provide a wide range of community health and mental health inpatient services to children, young people, adults of working age, and older adults in The City of London, Hackney, Newham, Tower Hamlets, Bedfordshire and Luton. We also provide psychological therapy services to the London Borough of Richmond, and provide Forensic services to the whole of North East London. We provide services in urban and rural settings, sometimes in our inpatient units, but mostly in the community close to where people live. Integrated care is key in making the best use of resources and providing effective care.

Aiming High

We were rated ‘Outstanding’ by the CQC in 2016, were proud to be rated ‘Outstanding’ again in 2018 and continue to be rate 'Outstanding' in 2021.. We were named in the HSJ’s Top 10 best places to work in healthcare and were voted Provider Trust of the Year in 2018.

Staff and Service Users United

We strive to ensure that staff feel valued by the Trust and as they are truly pivotal in delivering better outcomes for our patients and service users. Our aspiration is to help to make ELFT the best place to work. This Trust is clinician-led and provides the highest possible level of clinical expertise throughout its services. We pride ourselves on our service user involvement. A service user will be on your assessment centre and interview panel if you are invited to meet us.

We especially welcome people with lived experience of health difficulties, with insight and understanding of different backgrounds, cultures and lifestyles in our population as we believe that this will equip staff to deliver a high standard of care to our service users and patients.

Diversity

ELFT Is committed to being a diverse organisation and our workforce is reflective of the population and communities we serve. We believe that having colleagues with a range of backgrounds and life experiences enriches and adds value to the outcomes we have set out to achieve. Having partnered and endorsed by organisations who are representative and experts in various areas of equality and diversity, we can ensure we are meeting the pre-set standards all the way from recruitment stage throughout the career journey of our employees by being accessible, having fair inclusive practices and a host of staff networks to support, nurture and celebrate our valued staff in the workplace.

Other reasons to apply

As a flexible working friendly organisation, we want to be sure that you can work in a way that is best for us and for our patients, and for you. Speak to us about how we might be able to accommodate a flexible working arrangement whether that’s job share, part time or another flexible pattern.

As part of the relocation scheme we presently have, the Trust could support you with offering up to £10,000 for removal and associated expenses. This is subject to change and terms and conditions apply.

What Next?

If you like the sound of ELFT, don’t waste a moment. We sometimes close adverts early if there is a high response, so apply now!

As part of our recruitment process we may be required to share information you provide on the application form with NHS Counter Fraud Authority (NHSCFA) and/or other organisations for the purpose of the prevention, detection, investigation and prosecution of fraud or any other unlawful activity affecting the NHS. We also use third party providers to check and verify your qualifications who may be contacting you on our behalf to verify the same..

If you do not hear from us within four weeks of the closing date, please consider that you have not been shortlisted on this occasion. You must provide professional email addresses for all referees as we will contact them as soon as an offer has been made. Please note we do not request references prior to interviews. All applications made through NHS Jobs account will be processed by TRAC System. Please note that some emails may go to your spam/junk mailbox so make sure you check this regularly.

Find us online at www.elft.nhs.uk | Find us on Facebook | Follow us on @NHS_ELFT

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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.