Job summary
We are looking for expressions of interest for a Senior Occupational Therapist to join the Specialist Perinatal Mental Health service
This is an exciting opportunity for caring and compassionate occupational therapist to join our perinatal mental health team. The successful candidate will work with women and birthing people during pregnancy and postnatally, providing occupational therapy input to promote women's mental health and wellbeing, functioning and support their transition to motherhood. The successful candidate will adopt an holistic approach to their practice, considering the needs of all individuals involved.
The role involves working as part of an MDT consisting of doctors, nurses, psychologists, OT, family support workers and administrative staff. You will work in the community alongside other community services and in patient's homes to support women and families who need specialist care
We welcome applications from under-represented groups and in particular LGBTQ+ and BAME applicants.
IMPORTANT:The role will involve regular travel across multiple sites in the Mid-Mersey catchment area (Warrington, Halton, St Helens and Knowsley). Therefore, the post holder must be able to meet the travel requirements of this post.
Main duties of the job
Independently manage own caseload, prioritising referrals
Select and complete bespoke standardised and non-standardised OT assessments, applying an understanding of complex mental health needs and the impact this can have on occupational performance within a parenting role, as well as the mother-infant relationship
Collaboratively set goals to guide OT interventions
Plan and facilitate a range of 1:1 therapeutic interventions using a graded approach to achieve individualised therapeutic goals
Contribute towards the planning, facilitation and evaluation of groups
Develop working networks with relevant community agencies, where appropriate collaborating to complete joint working
Represent an OT clinical perspective within the MDT and other professional meetings
Be aware of and respond appropriately to the safeguarding needs of adults and children
Contribute to the continued development and evaluation of the OT service within the perinatal team
About us
Mersey Care is one of the largest trusts providing physical health and mental health services in the North West, serving more than 11 million people.
We offer specialist inpatient and community services that support physical and mental health and specialist inpatient mental health, learning disability, addiction and brain injury services. Mersey Care is one of only three trusts in the UK that offer high secure mental health facilities.
At the heart of all we do is our commitment to 'perfect care' - care that is safe, effective, positively experienced, timely, equitable and efficient. We support our staff to do the best job they can and work alongside service users, their families, and carers to design and develop future services together. We're currently delivering a programme of organisational and service transformation to significantly improve the quality of the services we provide and safely reduce cost as we do so.
Job description
Job responsibilities
To work with clients to identify OT goals as part of the overall care plan, using specialist mental health and OT assessment tools.
To plan and implement client centred individual and/or group interventions, using graded activity to achieve therapeutic goals.
To monitor, evaluate and modify treatment in order to measure progress and ensure effectiveness of intervention.
To apply a high level of understanding of the effect of disability and provide training and advice on lifestyle changes and adaptations to the clients social and physical environment.
To assess the occupational needs of a defined client group and establish and evaluate appropriate treatment programmes.
To provide clinical advice, expertise and leadership within your team.
To co-ordinate the care of a defined group of service users carrying out their assessment and planning, implementing and evaluating their care under the guidelines of CPA without supervision. To act as care coordinator (when required) normally for the more complex cases e.g. those service users subject to CPA.
To monitor and offer professional advice and leadership to all team members with regards to their caseloads and working practices.
To ensure that the service users care plan is developed to meet the assessed need of the individual. To monitor, via performance management, the care plans developed for service users by all sector members to ensure that they are appropriate and of a high standard.
To liaise with family members, carers and significant others as necessary when completing the assessment and developing a care plan. To be a point of contact for service users and carers that have concerns regarding their care, making every effort to resolve their concerns sensitively and promptly, referring to and informing the Team Manager as necessary.
To develop a risk management plan for service users under your care, taking note of the contributions from other members of the team. Ensure that all significant people are aware of the risk management plan and are actioning it appropriately.
To monitor and work with all team members to ensure that service user risk is managed appropriately and that risk management plans are of a high quality.
To participate in the duty/on call rota within the CMHT where such arrangements exist, including appropriate adult.
To lead the systematic monitoring and evaluation of service users under the care of the sector you have responsibility for.
To have an in-depth knowledge of the Mental Health Act. To support service users and their carers when the Mental Health Act is being used to admit the service user to hospital. To support staff involved in the application of the Mental Health Act, ensuring that they are aware of and fulfilling their duties.
To monitor the provision of a range of therapeutic activities for service users by supervision of sector members caseloads and via audit.
To use skills gained through training and experience to de-escalate situations where service users become physically or verbally aggressive. Use your judgement, gained from experience, to establish if a service user requires assessment by a medic or possibly hospital admission.
To use skills gained through experience to deal with service users who become angry, hostile or distressed.
To ensure all sector members get appropriate support following violent incidents and liaise with the Team Manager to ensure any identified actions arising from such incidents are implemented.
To participate in and/or lead service user reviews ensuring that service user needs are met and that the team has all the relevant information on which to base their clinical decisions.
To develop care plans that enable service users to reach and maintain their optimum level of health and independence to help them to remain in the community in their chosen setting or return to this on discharge.
To react pro-actively in cases of service user crisis and put in place immediate plans to resolve the situation.
Job description
Job responsibilities
To work with clients to identify OT goals as part of the overall care plan, using specialist mental health and OT assessment tools.
To plan and implement client centred individual and/or group interventions, using graded activity to achieve therapeutic goals.
To monitor, evaluate and modify treatment in order to measure progress and ensure effectiveness of intervention.
To apply a high level of understanding of the effect of disability and provide training and advice on lifestyle changes and adaptations to the clients social and physical environment.
To assess the occupational needs of a defined client group and establish and evaluate appropriate treatment programmes.
To provide clinical advice, expertise and leadership within your team.
To co-ordinate the care of a defined group of service users carrying out their assessment and planning, implementing and evaluating their care under the guidelines of CPA without supervision. To act as care coordinator (when required) normally for the more complex cases e.g. those service users subject to CPA.
To monitor and offer professional advice and leadership to all team members with regards to their caseloads and working practices.
To ensure that the service users care plan is developed to meet the assessed need of the individual. To monitor, via performance management, the care plans developed for service users by all sector members to ensure that they are appropriate and of a high standard.
To liaise with family members, carers and significant others as necessary when completing the assessment and developing a care plan. To be a point of contact for service users and carers that have concerns regarding their care, making every effort to resolve their concerns sensitively and promptly, referring to and informing the Team Manager as necessary.
To develop a risk management plan for service users under your care, taking note of the contributions from other members of the team. Ensure that all significant people are aware of the risk management plan and are actioning it appropriately.
To monitor and work with all team members to ensure that service user risk is managed appropriately and that risk management plans are of a high quality.
To participate in the duty/on call rota within the CMHT where such arrangements exist, including appropriate adult.
To lead the systematic monitoring and evaluation of service users under the care of the sector you have responsibility for.
To have an in-depth knowledge of the Mental Health Act. To support service users and their carers when the Mental Health Act is being used to admit the service user to hospital. To support staff involved in the application of the Mental Health Act, ensuring that they are aware of and fulfilling their duties.
To monitor the provision of a range of therapeutic activities for service users by supervision of sector members caseloads and via audit.
To use skills gained through training and experience to de-escalate situations where service users become physically or verbally aggressive. Use your judgement, gained from experience, to establish if a service user requires assessment by a medic or possibly hospital admission.
To use skills gained through experience to deal with service users who become angry, hostile or distressed.
To ensure all sector members get appropriate support following violent incidents and liaise with the Team Manager to ensure any identified actions arising from such incidents are implemented.
To participate in and/or lead service user reviews ensuring that service user needs are met and that the team has all the relevant information on which to base their clinical decisions.
To develop care plans that enable service users to reach and maintain their optimum level of health and independence to help them to remain in the community in their chosen setting or return to this on discharge.
To react pro-actively in cases of service user crisis and put in place immediate plans to resolve the situation.
Person Specification
Qualifications
Essential
- Registered Occupational Therapist with the Health Professions Council
- Diploma / Degree in Occupational Therapy
- Evidence of post registration study
Knowledge/Experience
Essential
- Have significant post qualification experience
- Experience of working with the client group applicable to post applied for
- Experience in training other professionals and students
- Experience of managing case work and liaison with community agencies, both statutory and non-statutory
Skills
Essential
- Up to date knowledge and application of current best practice in Occupational
- Therapy and relevant speciality
- Application of Occupational Therapy Outcome measures and models of practice
- Application of the process of standard setting, audit, evaluation and review
- A sound knowledge of the core skills of Occupational Therapy and their application in this field
- Able to communicate effectively
- Possess good listening skills
- Be able to demonstrate a sound knowledge base and rate personal experience of use of:
- CPA
- Assessment, treatment planning, intervention and evaluation
- Quality and clinical audit
- Health & Safety
- Risk management
- Mental Health Act
- The application of practical and theoretical knowledge in contemporary health cares eg. Application of intervention strategies
- A knowledge of National OT Strategies e.g. Recovering Ordinary Lives
- Clinical Governance
- Demonstrate a good knowledge of the Health Profession Councils standards of Proficiency and the Occupational therapists responsibility to identify gaps in their knowledge base
- Demonstrate knowledge of the concepts of mentorship, and supervision. Evidence of active participation in supervision and the appraisal process
- Experience in Group and individual interventions
- Experience working in a collaborative way with the MDT and service users/carers
- Good time management skills
- Professional attitude
- Flexibility
- Good interpersonal skills
Values
Essential
- Continuous Improvement
- Accountability
- Respectfulness
- Enthusiasm
- Support
- High professional standards
- Responsive to service users
- Engaging leadership style
- Strong customer service belief
- Transparency and honesty
- Discreet
- Change oriented
Person Specification
Qualifications
Essential
- Registered Occupational Therapist with the Health Professions Council
- Diploma / Degree in Occupational Therapy
- Evidence of post registration study
Knowledge/Experience
Essential
- Have significant post qualification experience
- Experience of working with the client group applicable to post applied for
- Experience in training other professionals and students
- Experience of managing case work and liaison with community agencies, both statutory and non-statutory
Skills
Essential
- Up to date knowledge and application of current best practice in Occupational
- Therapy and relevant speciality
- Application of Occupational Therapy Outcome measures and models of practice
- Application of the process of standard setting, audit, evaluation and review
- A sound knowledge of the core skills of Occupational Therapy and their application in this field
- Able to communicate effectively
- Possess good listening skills
- Be able to demonstrate a sound knowledge base and rate personal experience of use of:
- CPA
- Assessment, treatment planning, intervention and evaluation
- Quality and clinical audit
- Health & Safety
- Risk management
- Mental Health Act
- The application of practical and theoretical knowledge in contemporary health cares eg. Application of intervention strategies
- A knowledge of National OT Strategies e.g. Recovering Ordinary Lives
- Clinical Governance
- Demonstrate a good knowledge of the Health Profession Councils standards of Proficiency and the Occupational therapists responsibility to identify gaps in their knowledge base
- Demonstrate knowledge of the concepts of mentorship, and supervision. Evidence of active participation in supervision and the appraisal process
- Experience in Group and individual interventions
- Experience working in a collaborative way with the MDT and service users/carers
- Good time management skills
- Professional attitude
- Flexibility
- Good interpersonal skills
Values
Essential
- Continuous Improvement
- Accountability
- Respectfulness
- Enthusiasm
- Support
- High professional standards
- Responsive to service users
- Engaging leadership style
- Strong customer service belief
- Transparency and honesty
- Discreet
- Change oriented
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.
Applications from job seekers who require current Skilled worker sponsorship to work in the UK are welcome and will be considered alongside all other applications. For further information visit the UK Visas and Immigration website (Opens in a new tab).
From 6 April 2017, skilled worker applicants, applying for entry clearance into the UK, have had to present a criminal record certificate from each country they have resided continuously or cumulatively for 12 months or more in the past 10 years. Adult dependants (over 18 years old) are also subject to this requirement. Guidance can be found here Criminal records checks for overseas applicants (Opens in a new tab).
UK Registration
Applicants must have current UK professional registration. For further information please see
NHS Careers website (opens in a new window).
Additional information
Applications from job seekers who require current Skilled worker sponsorship to work in the UK are welcome and will be considered alongside all other applications. For further information visit the UK Visas and Immigration website (Opens in a new tab).
From 6 April 2017, skilled worker applicants, applying for entry clearance into the UK, have had to present a criminal record certificate from each country they have resided continuously or cumulatively for 12 months or more in the past 10 years. Adult dependants (over 18 years old) are also subject to this requirement. Guidance can be found here Criminal records checks for overseas applicants (Opens in a new tab).
UK Registration
Applicants must have current UK professional registration. For further information please see
NHS Careers website (opens in a new window).
