Mental Health Practitioner

Job responsibilities

Main duties and responsibilities

To coordinate the care of service users carrying out assessment planning, implementation and evaluation of their care under the guidelines of the care programme approach and under the supervision of the line manager.

To ensure that the service users care plan is developed to meet the assessed need of the individual and that unqualified staff are delivering care as identified in the care plan.

To liaise with family members, carers and significant others when completing the assessment and developing a care plan.

To undertake and supervise risk assessments and formulation of risk management plan for service users under your care, taking note of the contributions from other members of the team, family members carers and significant others.

To ensure Safeguarding Children and Adults requirements are followed and participate in meetings as appropriate.

To direct unqualified staff to ensure delivery of a high standard of care to service users.

To participate in setting standards for care based on sound evidence based and research findings.

To participate in the systematic monitoring and evaluation of service users.

To communicate to other members of the multi-disciplinary team information which has an impact on the service users care.

To use verbal and non-verbal communication skills gained through training or experience to impart sensitive information.

To check understanding of information where there are barriers to effective communication.

To give and receive accurate up to date information regarding service users care in reviews and multi-disciplinary meetings etc. These reviews may be external to the Trust.

To have accurate and up to date knowledge of the Mental Health Act / Mental Capacity Act and other relevant legislation.

Where appropriate to job role take responsibility for the safe administration of medication to service users ensuring that the Trust policies and procedures and the Nursing and Midwifery Councils regulations are adhered to.

To ensure that all relevant information with regards to a service users care and treatment is documented accurately and legibly into the health record. To supervise and monitor the entries made by unqualified staff.

Provide reports both in written and verbal formats as requested.

To ensure that all incidents or near misses are documented as per trust policy and that any follow up action is taken.

To react pro-actively in cases of service user crisis and put in place immediate plans to resolve the situation with supervision and guidance as appropriate.

To supervise nursing, social work, approved mental health professional (AMHP) and other students

To actively participate in team meetings.

To participate in the induction of new staff.

Professional duties and responsibilities

To be responsible for maintaining relevant professional registration and PREP requirements.

To participate in life long learning to maintain and develop practice using continuing professional development (CPD), self directed learning, reflective practice, coaching, mentorship, clinical supervision and performance management in the interests and needs of you and the service.

To provide an effective link between mental health services and primary care, acting in an advisory capacity to professionals in other fields.

To develop effective working relationships with other professionals outside of the Trust in order to enhance the delivery of care to service users.

To participate as a supervisor and supervisee in the Divisional performance management / supervision framework. Work towards and help others work towards goals and objectives as agreed in personal development plans.

To take responsibility for maintaining and developing own knowledge and skills within own area of work.

To attend, as appropriate, courses and conferences, and to feedback and share knowledge, gained from attendance.

To be professionally accountable for own actions as a registered practitioner.

To act, at all times, in accordance with Trust policies and procedures, ensuring that unqualified staff are adhering to policy and procedure.

To undertake mandatory training as identified by the Trust and Division to ensure that all actions are in line with training.

To keep up to date with developments in professional practice and make recommendations for change to senior staff, as appropriate.

Organisational

To adhere to the Trusts rights based approach taking into account service user choice.

To participate in service development as required.

Qualifications

Essential

• Appropriate professional qualification or experience at degree level e.g. registered mental nurse (RMN), allied health professional (AHP), social worker
• Evidence of post registration study / continuing professional development e.g. Mentorship in Practice.

Desirable

• Working towards master level education

Experience

Essential

• Post registration experience in mental health.
• Evidence of leadership and management skills.
• Evidence of experience of managing cases and case loads
• Evidence of supervising staff.
• Ability to work autonomously across the organisation/ boundaries and with other agencies
• Experience of working in partnership with other agencies and service users and carers
• Experience of audit/research and working knowledge of clinical governance.
• Experience in change management and policy formulation.
• Experience of using incident reporting systems e.g. Radar
• Experience of undertaking and involvement in serious untoward incident reviews
• Evidence of experience of working with a range of people with mental health problems in a variety of health care settings.

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

Knowledge/Skills

Essential

• Able to communicate effectively both verbally and non-verbally.
• Being responsive and flexible, seeing change as an opportunity to improve services
• Ability to lead the process of standard setting and audit
• Leadership skills
• Ability to work within a divisional management team, be able to generate own workload and ability to work to strict deadlines.
• Ability to build purposeful relationships - both internal and external to the organisation.
• Proven knowledge of relevant Mental Health Act Legislation.
• Demonstrate knowledge of CPA ECC guidelines.
• Demonstrate knowledge in the concepts of mentorship, preceptorship and supervision and ability to provide education and supervision to junior staff
• Demonstrate a good knowledge of professional codes of conduct and staffs' responsibility to identify gaps in their knowledge base.
• Possess excellent listening, negotiation skills and leadership skills.
• Excellent oral and written skills
• Excellent interpersonal and organisational skills.
• The ability to lead change management
• Ability to contribute to developing care excellence within the ward / team area.

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).