Job responsibilities
JOB PURPOSE:
As an experienced Occupational Therapist with a mental health background, you will provide professional leadership, support and advice within the multi-disciplinary team across a range of Primary Care practices. The post holder will:
- Work across organisational boundaries, developing new way of working to promote relationships to increase the quality of patient care and service within primary care.
- Provide a high level of occupational therapy/professional care and treatment to patients through high quality occupational therapy care, assessment and therapeutic intervention to adults with complex and substantial difficulties as part of a multidisciplinary team approach.
- Work autonomously to undertake advanced practice procedures and promote recovery and wellbeing and maximising independence.
- Facilitate mainstream primary care services for adults with mental health and/or learning difficulties and/or cognitive problems to advise and support agencies with regard to meeting their duty of care.
- Be responsible for disseminating information about good practice and lead on the implementation of good practice that has been developed within the Primary Care Network.
- Provide compassionate care that is based on empathy, kindness, respect and dignity.
- Participate in the planning, development and evaluation of clinical services leading on defined projects as agreed with the Clinical Director and in collaboration with the multi-disciplinary team.
ROLE RESPONSIBILITIES:
Professional Leadership and Development
- To be responsible for maintaining own competency to practice through Continuing Professional Development activities and to participate in the review and appraisal process.
- To adhere to the individual Professional code of conduct and practice at all times.
- To reflect on own practice individually and/or through regular clinical supervision.
- Provide clinical education, training and evaluation of clinical competence of team and multidisciplinary team staff, providing support and guidance.
- To maintain, develop and disseminate specialist knowledge of evidence based practice.
- To critically evaluate own work through the use of evidence based projects, audits and outcome measures.
- To work autonomously as an Occupational Therapist within professional and PICS guidelines, policies and procedures.
Communication and Relationships:
- Demonstrate advanced communication skills in providing advice, empowerment, facilitation, influence, motivation and counselling.
- Manage complex communication issues that may arise between differing health and social care professionals including de-escalation skills when working in highly antagonistic, hostile and emotive clinical areas.
- Demonstrate an understanding of the need to involve patients and carers in decision making, offering them informed choices, respecting their views.
- Demonstrate the ability to recognise barriers to understanding that can be encountered with those without English as their first language, patients with disabilities and those with mental health difficulties such as anxiety, clinical depression or personality disorders.
- Seek out different styles and methods of communicating to assist longer term needs and aims.
- The nature of some communication can be unpredictable and can be of an urgent high priority nature: this can therefore be responsible for impacting into time allocated towards other necessary tasks.
- Provide and receive complex and sensitive information in relation to patient care and will have the ability to advise and support others to communicate information in an understandable, empathic and reassuring way to adults with Mental Health and/or Learning Disabilities and/or Cognitive difficulties and their family and carers.
- Utilise communications in accordance with Caldicott Principles, Data Protection, Freedom of Information Act and Trust Policies and procedures.
- Provide reports, information and advice (written and verbal) to patients, professionals and carers/family.
- Demonstrate excellent working relationships with the clinical team, colleagues and other stakeholders (internal and external) based on respect and mutual support.
Knowledge, Skills, Training and Experience:
- First level qualification HCPC registered occupational therapist.
- Post graduate degree or equivalent qualification or experience.
- A teaching qualification (e.g. ENB 998/P126/127) or a proven track record in occupational therapy education.
- Highly developed specialist knowledge of meeting the health needs of Adults with Mental Health and/or Learning Disabilities and/or Cognitive difficulties underpinned by theory and experience.
- In depth knowledge of National and HCPC policies, procedures, code of conduct and standards of care in relation to service provision for adults with mental health and/or learning disabilities and/or cognitive difficulties.
- Post qualification experience of working collaboratively with statutory partners, third sector partners and families/carers.
- Knowledge of safeguarding adult and children procedures and the ability to take on a lead role in strategy meetings as and when required.
- Developed skills from a wide and variant background, experience and a broad yet deep knowledge base underpinned with a proven track record and/or an academically scrutinised knowledge base.
- Proven professional development, a profile that demonstrates, advanced clinical nursing practice.
- To have the ability to lead complex care co-ordination, proactively manage complex long term conditions.
- Support self-care, management enabling independence through concordance and using advanced consultation skills.
- Dealing with patients who have cognitive impairment and understand mental wellbeing.
- Offer advanced consultation skills and developed specialist and generic knowledge to undertake comprehensive assessment of health and psychosocial care needs of patients with complex disease, including holistic assessment, gathering and interpreting information, performing tests and analysing results.
- Analytical judgement underpinned with specialist knowledge and experience is used to develop evidenced based holistic personal care plan with patients, carers, relatives and health care professionals based on a full assessment of medical, nursing, and social care needs.
- Work collaboratively with colleagues using databases to actively seek patients who will benefit from clinical cases management techniques to avoid unplanned hospital admissions and reduce the length of hospital admissions.
- Provide evidence based written information, ensuring easy access to advice and information for patients and their carers.
- Acts a role model demonstrating high standards of care and providing clinical leadership to others.
- Provides specialist education and training to other professionals involved in patient care
- Participate in the education, induction programmes and support meetings for other professional staff.
- Actively participate in other multi-professional meetings, acting as the patient advocate.
- Monitor own performance by reflective practice and identify training and educational needs.
- Contributes to the identification of service goals and appreciates how this links in with performance targets and quality indicators.
- Engage in local and organisational audit.
- Regular self-direction of learning needs.
- Maintain up to date mandatory training records.
- Identify the potential benefits of, and participating in, educational programmes for patients and their relatives/carers.
- Participate in the education of pre and post registered professionals and curriculum development where appropriate.
- Address specific health targets e.g. NHS Plan, National Service Frameworks related to own area of practice through education
- Ensure own compliance and compliance of others with regard to mandatory training and individual health professional requirements.
Please download the supporting documentation to support with your application and for full role details.
