Gloucestershire Health and Care NHS Foundation Trust

Highly Specialised Speech and Language Therapist

The closing date is 26 May 2025

Job summary

Are you an established band 7 therapist or a band 6 therapist looking for their next step and an opportunity to develop your skills working with a small caseload of children and adults with a learning disability?

A rare and exciting opportunity has arisen for a highly motivated and enthusiastic Speech and Language Therapist to join ourLearning Disability Intensive Support Service (LDISS). We are a nationally recognised service, providing people with a Learning Disability that cannot be supported in mainstream services, support in the community, with the aim of keeping people at home and avoiding unnecessary hospital admissions.

Main duties of the job

The post holder will be an invaluable member of the Learning Disability Intensive Support Service (LDISS) working with service users throughout Gloucestershire and working into our small inpatient service in Stroud. The purpose of this role is to:

Provide a highly specialist speech and language therapy service to adults and children with learning disabilities referred to LDISS

Provide a highly specialist speech and language therapy service to our small learning disability inpatient service based at Berkeley House in Stroud

To work as a key member of a specialist multidisciplinary service

To provide eating and drinking assessments and interventions to individual service users. This would be desirable but not essential.

Optimise the service users' ability to remain in the community and / or be cared for in the least restrictive environment.

Facilitate appropriate discharge from hospital and respond to agencies requiring assessment of service users who are being considered for hospital admission.

As part of LDISS intervention support the development and implementation of the PBS positive behaviour support plan

Identify, assess eligibility for, provide and support in the implementation of alternative/augmentative communication aids, including visual resources and high/low tech devices.

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.

Date posted

14 May 2025

Pay scheme

Agenda for change

Band

Band 7

Salary

£46,148 to £52,809 a year Per annum

Contract

Permanent

Working pattern

Part-time

Reference number

327-25-395

Job locations

Pullman Place

Great Western Road

Gloucester

GL3 1NF

Job description

Job responsibilities

CLINICAL

To assess, develop and implement highly specialist speech and language therapy treatment and intervention; ensuring that service users are involved in the planning and prioritisation of their care plans wherever possible.

To demonstrate a high level of clinical effectiveness, using evidence-based practice, adapting practice to meet individual service users circumstances; including due regard for cultural and linguistic differences, and by evaluating outcomes.

To provide highly specialist advice to others regarding the management and care of service users with communication difficulties and/or feeding and swallowing difficulties.

To plan and prioritise workload, exercising autonomous professional responsibility for the assessment, treatment, and discharge of service users with communication difficulties and/or feeding and swallowing difficulties.

To contribute to observations and advise/offer a clinical impression/professional opinion on how communication difficulties may inform/explain/feed into behaviour that challenges.

To assess improvement in quality of life following SLT input using appropriate and informative outcome measures.

To ensure the service user is at the centre of goal setting and treatment formulation, in consultation with significant others as appropriate for each individual

To apply a range of alternative individualised communication strategies with service users experiencing significant communication difficulties

To provide specific SLT, learning disability/Autism training for staff / care providers and other outside agencies.

To implement and monitor a Positive Behaviour Support ethos across LDISS and role model best practice and disseminate knowledge to wider team/care providers.

To maintain accurate written records and statistics to ensure that service user details and details of care given are recorded in notes and on the trust database(s) in line with trust policy.

To liaise with and offer specialist assessment and advice to other agencies and professions. To participate in Multi-Agency meetings to offer advice and opinions to facilitate the ongoing treatment and care of service users.

To provide and receive complex and sensitive information from service users, carers or other professionals and agencies, on a daily basis.

The post holder will assume a responsibility of a shared case load.

PROFESSIONAL

To be accountable for own professional action and recognise own professional boundaries through interpretation of clinical/professional policies.

To work within defined departmental and national protocols/policies and professional code of conduct.

To attend Trust internal meetings and have full participation in organising and presenting at Continuing Professional Development days.

To develop, implement and evaluate care plans in conjunction with service users, carers and other professionals which reflect individual needs. To employ excellent communication skills.

There is a requirement to use your own vehicle to travel throughout Gloucestershire to carry out appointments.

To research, develop and share current best practice to optimise the service users ability to engage with their environment in line with principles of social inclusion and / or recovery

Act as supervisory mentor for students (within framework of profession).

To design and complete audits and monitor compliance alongside agreed governance structures.

In partnership with team manager organise and chair Multidisciplinary team meetings and Service user orientated meetings.

To collate, analyse, and present service user data to the weekly Multidisciplinary team meetings.

To implement risk assessments and management plans on a daily basis.