Principal Occupational Therapist Pain

As a Principal Occupational Therapist, you will provide professional leadership for Vocational Rehabilitation and Social Participation services within the Pain Service, working collaboratively with the Clinical Lead, AHP & Strategic Lead and wider leadership team to ensure the delivery of evidence-based, effective, efficient, safe and high-quality care. You will be responsible for the ongoing development and delivery of the specialist vocational rehabilitation pathway, supporting people living with persistent pain to retain employment, successfully return to work, and progress towards meaningful vocational goals. You will hold a highly specialist clinical caseload, undertaking complex vocational assessments and delivering advanced interventions that address the physical, psychological and social barriers to work participation.

A key component of the role is the management and development of our specialist Occupational Therapy team, delivering vocational, pre-vocational and social reintegration programmes. You will drive service innovation, quality improvement and outcome measurement, ensuring that vocational rehabilitation remains central to the service's biopsychosocial approach to pain management. Our specialist OT team works in close partnership with Pain Support Jersey and a range of employers, community organisations and government services to maximise participation, inclusion and occupational outcomes for service users.

Main duties of the job:

• Use your experience as an innovative Occupational Therapist with advanced expertise in vocational rehabilitation to join the multidisciplinary Pain Service within Health & Community Services, Jersey.
• This role also includes teaching, training and consultancy to patients, healthcare professionals, employers and wider community stakeholders, promoting the evidence base for work, occupation and social participation as key determinants of health and wellbeing and essential components of effective pain management.

You will bring demonstrable experience in:

• Significant post-registration experience in vocational rehabilitation, occupational health, work-focused rehabilitation, or occupational medicine settings.
• Advanced clinical skills in supporting individuals with complex physical and/or mental health conditions to remain in, return to, or move towards employment.
• Proven leadership and management experience, including service development, workforce development and quality improvement.
• Experience of delivering and evaluating vocational rehabilitation interventions within multidisciplinary teams.
• The ability to work strategically across health, employment, social care and third-sector systems to improve outcomes for people living with persistent pain.

About us:

At Health and Care Jersey, we're not just delivering healthcare - we're shaping the future of health and wellbeing for over 100,000 Islanders and visitors. Our dedicated team of over 2,000 professionals provides essential care across 30+ diverse departments, offering a wide range of specialist services from acute and emergency care to community and preventative health initiatives. With state-of-the-art facilities like the brand-new Enid Quenault Health and Wellbeing Centre and exciting plans to modernise our healthcare infrastructure, this is a great time to join us. Whether you're providing frontline patient care, supporting health initiatives in the community, or contributing to vital mental health and social services, your work will make a meaningful impact on people's lives every day.

Job responsibilities:

• To work as a clinical specialist AHP, assessing, formulating and treating a highly complex clinical caseload as an autonomous Occupational therapist practitioner, managing Occupational therapy staff within the Pain management service.
• To lead on occupation and social participation initiatives for the Interdisciplinary pain team, managing OT team and wider team in relation to these interventions.
• To provide specialist information and advice to clients, their families, Healthcare Professionals, External agencies (Social Security/Back To Work team, Jersey Employment Trust, Skills Jersey), Occupational Health Services (e.g. AXA), Employers (including Government department managers), the Third sector (e.g. Pain Support Jersey) in relation to persistent pain and up to date and evidenced based management in relation to employment and functional/social independence.
• To work in collaboration with the Consultant AHP, Pain Multidisciplinary team and other staff to ensure both an effective and high quality Occupational therapy service and PMP (Pain Management Programme) service delivery.
• To lead critical audit activity in own area and support supervised research activity; supporting strategy and policy development regarding persistent pain and employment ensuring the integration of research evidence into vocational rehabilitation.

Person Specification:

Experience Essential:

• Minimum of Seven years, full time, relevant post qualification experience, including working within Adult Mental Health services and Persistent Pain Management; with two of these years spent in management or research and critical appraisal of specialist area.
• Experience and knowledge of project-based service delivery, incorporating planning, evaluation, reporting methods and appropriate user involvement processes (e.g. co-design).
• Experience in communicating specialist information on range of service development issues.
• Experience in teaching, lecturing and training other professions.

Qualifications Essential:

• Degree in Occupational Therapy and registered member of the Royal College of Occupational Therapists.
• Qualification in Management Studies.
• Masters degree in vocational rehabilitation or Pain science.
• Registered with the Health & Care Professions Council and registered as an Occupational therapist under the Health Care (Registration) (Jersey) Law 1995.
• Additional specialist post-graduate knowledge and skills training through recognised, accredited courses (Persistent Pain is a postgraduate area of specialism and not covered by undergraduate or post-graduate training).
• Post registration training in Mental health conditions including severe and enduring illness.

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.