Senior Speech & Language Therapist

NHS; Ipswich; Hybrid; GBP 30,000 - 50,000; Full time

Job summary

An exciting opportunity to join a dedicated Speech & Language Therapy team, providing essential services for adults with Learning Disabilities and Autism. This role offers the chance to work within a supportive multi-disciplinary environment, where you will deliver specialized assessments and interventions. You will be empowered to develop your clinical skills while collaborating with diverse professionals. The organization values its staff and provides extensive training opportunities, flexible working options, and a generous benefits package. If you are passionate about making a difference in patient care, this role is perfect for you.

Benefits

Flexible Working Options

Generous Pension Scheme

27 Days Annual Leave

NHS Discounts

Health and Wellbeing Programme

Qualifications

• Experience working with learning disabilities and complex communication needs.
• Ability to manage own caseload and work within a multi-disciplinary team.

Responsibilities

• Provide specialist assessment and interventions for clients with learning disabilities.
• Develop and deliver training packages as part of the Inclusive Communication service.

Skills

Teamwork

Communication Skills

Independent Caseload Management

Inclusive Communication Approaches

Experience with Learning Disabilities

Training and Teaching Skills

Experience with Autism

Education

RCSLT Recognised Degree

HCPC Membership

Specialist Course Certifications

Job description

East Suffolk and North Essex NHS Foundation Trust

This post offers an exciting opportunity for a skilled and enthusiastic clinician to join our Speech & Language Therapy team on a fixed term basis to cover maternity leave, delivering services for adults with Learning Disability & Autism. We are seeking a therapist who is passionate about delivering quality services for this population and who has experience of working with people with complex communication needs. This countywide Learning Disability service is part of the East Suffolk Speech and Language Therapy team, facilitating an integrative model of support and specialism across other areas of speech and language therapy, including provision of videofluoroscopy and FEES.

As part of our friendly and innovative integrated SLT service, this specialist SLT team currently provides communication and dysphagia services across Suffolk community, as well as supporting the adult autism diagnostic service. We also deliver the SLT services within the local mental health LD multidisciplinary teams and alongside the local specialist communication aid service. Our integrated model and extensive MDT working requires someone who is a strong team player, comfortable with working independently at times, and skilled at building and maintaining relationships with colleagues across professions and organisations.

Main duties of the job

You will provide specialist assessment and interventions for people with a learning disability who present with complex communication difficulties. Depending on your skill set and clinical interest, the role could also involve providing support for dysphagia and/or autism diagnosis. The role may include working alongside MDT colleagues to support people who present with behaviours that challenge. Developing and delivering training packages will also be a key component of this role as part of our Inclusive Communication service.

You will be based in one of our community clinics, though there is likely to be an element of remote working. Some countywide travel may be required at times.

If you are looking to broaden your clinical skills or if you enjoy working with a range of clinical presentations, this job will give you this experience, and we encourage our team to work closely with the paediatric, adult acquired, and acute services.

About us

We are ESNEFT and we provide hospital and community health services to almost one million people across east Suffolk and north Essex. Our dedicated staff deliver care from acute hospitals in Colchester and Ipswich, community hospitals, surgeries, community clinics, and in patients' own homes.

We are one of the largest NHS organisations in England, employing more than 12,000 staff.

We pride ourselves on supporting our staff. We offer a wide range of training and development opportunities, as well as flexible working options.

Along with supporting you to achieve your career goals, we offer a generous pension scheme, unsocial hours payments (where applicable), 27 days annual leave on commencement (pro rata), and access to a range of NHS discounts. Our Staff Health and Wellbeing programme offers a variety of services.

Our philosophy is that Time Matters to everyone. Across the Trust, we concentrate on improving the things we do and removing those that cause time delays for our staff and patients.

If you are passionate about patient care and want to develop your skills and knowledge, then we want to hear from you.

Job responsibilities

For full details of the responsibilities and duties of this role, please see the attached job description.

Person Specification

Experience

• Experience of working in various settings
• Experience of working as a member of a multi-disciplinary team
• Liaising with other agencies/other staff groups
• Experience of working with people with learning disabilities
• Experience of independently managing own caseload
• Experience of delivering Inclusive Communication approaches to provider services and evaluating effectiveness
• Teaching/training other staff
• Experience of supervising staff
• Experience of working with people with physical disability or mental illness
• Experience of working with autistic/neurodivergent people
• Experience of working with people with swallowing problems

Qualifications

• RCSLT recognised degree or equivalent
• Eligible for registered membership of RCSLT
• HCPC membership
• Ability to travel to different places of work/driving licence
• Portfolio of relevant post qualification CPD including specialist knowledge of the client group
• Evidence of attendance at specialist courses, e.g., PECS, Intensive Interaction, Makaton
• Certificate for training in ADOS/ADI-R/ACIA (or other relevant autism diagnostic assessments)

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.

East Suffolk and North Essex NHS Foundation Trust