Consultant in Perinatal Psychiatry-Community

Job description

Job responsibilities

This is a new post. The service plans to pilot a Duty and Urgent Assessment team (DUAT) which is part of the Leeds Community Perinatal Mental Health Team. The service is being developed to clearly delineate the functions of the community team and enable the team to respond in a timely manner to urgent and emergency referrals in addition to providing close monitoring of patients who require more than weekly community contacts .The DUAT team will consist of a newly appointed consultant, 3 x band 6 mental health nurses, 1 x band 6 Occupation Therapist and a senior social worker.

The core functions of this team will be:

• Assessment of all the emergency referrals to the perinatal mental health service (within 4 hours)
• Assessment of all the urgent referrals to the perinatal mental health service (within 48 hours)
• Assessment of urgent referrals from LTHT to be seen jointly with Liaison Psychiatry
• Patients will need to be registered with a Leeds GP
• Management of patients who need a higher level of monitoring and support (e.g.: several contacts within a week). These will be newly referred and assessed patients who will later be transferred to the locality teams after achieving a period of stability
• Locality perinatal teams can refer existing patients on their caseload to the DUAT if patients require a period of intensive support, with mutual agreement.
• Monitoring of post-natal women at a high risk of developing severe mental illness. This will be on a case-by-case basis following liaison with locality perinatal teams.
• Responsibility for the duty system. This involves taking all calls and referrals to the service. Routine referrals will be forwarded to the locality teams. All referrals will receive a telephone triage.
• Intensive support for certain patients on discharge from MBU to facilitate early discharge and provide additional support when on leave from MBU.
• It is anticipated that the number of patients on the caseload of the team will be around 10-15, and patients will be under the care of the team for a 2-4 week period before transfer to locality teams.
• The service provision will be reviewed at 3 monthly intervals
• The DUAT team will be able to access other professional input from the wider MDT such as social workers, psychologists, peer support workers, partners support, inclusion worker etc. There will also be a monthly complex case meeting led by the Psychology lead for the service.
• The service will be Monday to Friday 9am to 5 pm.

The annual birth-rate for Leeds is 10,500.the current target for the perinatal community team is 8.6% of the birth rate. The target achieved for 2021-23 is 7.6%.it is expected that once the MMHS is fully operational the target will be achieved. The total caseload of the sector community team is 425.The service usually receives about 1 urgent /emergency referral per week.

Person Specification

Experience

Essential

• Experience of perinatal psychiatry in community setting

Skills

Essential

• excellent communication skills and ability to lead an MDT

Qualifications

Essential

• MBBS or equivalent

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.

UK Registration

Applicants must have current UK professional registration. For further information please see NHS Careers website (opens in a new window).

Employer details

Employer name

Leeds and York Partnership NHS Foundation Trust

Address

The Mount

Perinatal Community Team

Leeds

LS2 9LN

Employer's website

https://www.leedsandyorkpft.nhs.uk/ (Opens in a new tab)