SPOE Practitioner | Pennine Care NHS Foundation Trust in Stockport

Provide single point of entry and first level gatekeeping into mental health services for older people. Screen, triage and assess all referrals, and allocate to the most appropriate service. Conduct comprehensive assessments of health and social care needs, including risk assessments. Coordinate assessment clinics and prioritise appointments. Provide assessment for individuals presenting through the urgent care pathway with acute mental health needs, and identify appropriate management plans, follow‑up care, referrals and fast‑track patients into specialist services within the SPOE function. Deliver brief crisis interventions and follow‑up appointments to support crisis management and harm minimisation. Participate in the overall development of the service, ensuring that Clinical Governance principles underpin all developments. Deliver care in accordance with Pennine Care NHS Foundation Trust policies, the Mental Health Act and community care legislation.

Responsibilities:

• Triage all referrals that are made to the service as the single point of entry and first level gatekeeper to mental health services.
• Make onward referral to the most appropriate service to meet the individual needs of the service user following triage.
• Carry out a thorough assessment of the service users’ current mental health problems and individual needs, including a risk assessment.
• Develop individualised packages of care for service users with mental health problems, including signposting where necessary.
• Provide short‑term psychotherapeutic interventions as appropriate.
• Provide short‑term crisis management as appropriate.
• Identify the need for protection in line with safeguarding children and the Protection of Vulnerable Adult Policy and comply with statutory obligations.
• Liaise and negotiate with other professions, statutory and independent agencies to ensure the best possible service is provided to service users and carers.
• Evaluate and systematically record outcomes of mental health assessments, adapting care on the basis of these outcomes.
• Involve family and carers in the assessment and care planning with service users’ consent.
• Provide advice and information to non‑mental health trained medical and nursing staff regarding the management of patients with mental health problems.
• Undertake evidence‑based practice and observe and practice within the legal requirements of the Mental Health Act 1983.
• Maintain professional awareness by keeping abreast of changing trends in clinical/professional practice.
• Maintain accurate and up‑to‑date clinical documentation on all service user contacts, ensuring confidentiality at all times.
• Develop a thorough understanding of deliberate self‑harm, suicide and possible management strategies.
• Possess sound knowledge of issues surrounding violence and aggression and be able to diffuse potentially difficult and volatile situations.
• Contribute to the establishment and review of policies, procedures and practice guidelines relating to the work of the SPOE and the interface between primary, secondary and specialist mental health services.

All individuals regardless of race, age, disability, ethnicity, nationality, gender, gender reassignment, sexual orientation, religion or belief, marriage and civil partnership are encouraged to apply for this post. Applications from individuals with a lived experience of mental illness, either individually or as a carer, are also encouraged.