Specialist Speech and Language Therapist

Gloucestershire Health and Care NHS Foundation Trust; Cheltenham; On-site; GBP 38,000 - 47,000; Part time

Job summary

A healthcare organization in Cheltenham is seeking a Specialist Speech and Language Therapist for a part-time position (30 hours a week) on a fixed-term contract. The role involves assessing and managing a caseload of children with various communication needs. Applicants should have current HCPC registration and experience in delivering speech and language therapy. This is an opportunity to work within a dedicated team, providing essential services in community clinics. Competitive salary offered.

Qualifications

• Experience in managing own caseload independently.
• Prior experience with speech, language, and communication needs in children.
• Evidence of post-qualification training in relevant fields.

Responsibilities

• Assess, diagnose, and treat children with speech, language and communication needs.
• Provide advice to families and professionals.
• Contribute to service development projects.

Skills

Independent caseload management

Working with children

Communication Skills

Education

HCPC registration

RCSLT membership

Tools

AAC

Job description

Specialist Speech and Language Therapist

The closing date is 23 December 2025

1x fixed term contract for up to 6 months. This is a part time post for 30 hours a week.

This is an exciting opportunity for motivated Speech and Language Therapists to join our Children's Speech and Language Therapy team, providing specialist Speech & Language Therapy services to children & young people in Gloucestershire.

We have hours available to support community clinics including Stroud and also specialist schools. Our community clinics support children with speech, preschool language, voice, fluency and social communication needs.

This post is to support community clinics across the county. This is determined by current service need and the base may change in response to this.

The post holder will be responsible for assessing, differentially diagnosing, treating and managing a designated caseload of children.

They will provide advice to parents and other professionals in order to support the needs of children in line with the Care Aims approach, including agreeing outcomes with key adults supporting the children on the caseload.

Main duties of the job

• Independently assess, diagnose, plan and deliver an appropriate therapeutic service to children with a range of speech, language and communication needs.
• Analyse complex cases in order to inform decision making for case management, working within the care aims framework to design appropriate evidence based intervention.
• Provide advice, information, demonstration and training where necessary concerning specific strategies of intervention for the management of the child's communication difficulties.
• Provide timely reports to parents / carers and other professionals to ensure that the child's needs are appropriately identified.
• Contribute to graduated pathway plans, write EHC Plans to SEND Casework Officers in line with the SEND graduated pathway.
• Be an active member of our innovative supervision structure.
• Contribute to service development projects.

The qualification, 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.

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

To form productive relationships with carers /parents who may be under stress, in particular when imparting potentially distressing information regarding the nature of their child's difficulties and implications of this.

To communicate complex condition related information from assessments in such a manner as to inform and positively motivate clients, carers, families and multi-disciplinary team members / other professionals.

To demonstrate appropriate skills and techniques to parents and to Learning Support staff in schools and pre-school settings to maximise the effectiveness of speech and language therapy intervention within all settings.

To use negotiation skills to manage any potential areas of conflict in a proactive manner, especially in relation to satisfying the competing demands of an unpredictable and varied workload, working co-operatively and flexibly with all stakeholders.

To develop collaborative and co-operative working relationships with SLT colleagues in in-house client/working groups, SLT colleagues who offer similar provision at other locations across the County, and colleagues in relevant Special Interest Groups within the profession to ensure that the service reflects best practice and makes best use of shared resources.

To communicate complex condition-related information from assessment to clients, carers, families and multi-disciplinary team members / other professionals, and to develop and maintain working relationships with a wide range of other Professionals including Health Visitors, Community Paediatricians, Pre-school CYPD Special Educational Needs Co‑ordinators, Advisory Teaching Staff, Educational Psychologists, Social Services colleagues, Head Teachers, teaching and support staff in mainstream schools.

This role is not eligible for sponsorship as per the Governments UK VISA and Immigration Rules and Regulations. For more information please visit https://www.gov.uk/browse/visas-immigration/work-visas

Person Specification

Experience

• Evidence of independently managing own caseload
• Prior experience of working with children with speech, language and communication needs

Professional registration

• Current HCPC registration and RCSLT membership

Qualifications

• Evidence of post qualification training in relevant fields
• Evidence of experience supporting children with complex needs including AAC

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.

Gloucestershire Health and Care NHS Foundation Trust

£38,682 to £46,580 a year per annum pro rata