Band 7 OT Emergency Department

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Main area: Occupational Therapy

Grade: Band 7

Contract: Permanent

Hours: Full time - 37.5 hours per week (7 day working pattern)

Job ref: 197-AO7535-A

Lewisham and Greenwich NHS Trust (LGT) is a community-focused provider of local and acute care, delivering high-quality services to over one million people living across the London boroughs of Lewisham, Greenwich, and Bexley. We provide whole-life care and are here to support our communities to live healthier lives as well as taking care of them when they need us the most.

Employing almost 7,500 colleagues, affectionately known as Team LGT, we provide services at Queen Elizabeth Hospital in Woolwich, University Hospital Lewisham, and at over a dozen community settings in Lewisham. We also provide some services at Queen Mary’s Hospital in Sidcup.

We have recently launched our new vision and values to mark the LGT10 – the tenth anniversary of our Trust forming in 2013. Our trust vision is to be exceptional in the quality of our patient care; our support for colleagues; and in the difference we make through our partnerships and in our communities.

Our hospitals and community sites provide a wide range of inpatient and outpatient services, as well as emergency and planned care. The Trust is rated as “good” or “outstanding” in over three-quarters of the services inspected by the Care Quality Commission.

Every year our work includes performing 10,000 procedures in our theatres; bringing seven and a half thousand new lives into the world; carrying out 570,000 visits to patients in their homes or communities and providing emergency care for more than 300,000 patients arriving in our busy Urgent and Emergency Departments.

LGT is a centre for the education and training of medical students enrolled with King’s College London’s GKT School of Medical Education. We are a training centre for nurses, midwives and allied health professionals. We are pioneering new roles that will support the changing needs of our patients and are one of the largest employers of physician associates in the country.

We are committed to working with our partners to deliver the best outcomes for our local communities. This means playing an active role in the South East London Integrated Care System (ICS), and in formal partnerships including the South East London Acute Provider Collaborative, provider partnerships with our local mental health trusts and borough-based boards of the ICS.

Job overview:

Queen Elizabeth Hospital is committed to high-quality patient care and staff development. We are currently seeking a passionate, dynamic Band 7 Occupational Therapist to join our newly redeveloped Emergency department team. The Emergency department at QEH is a fast-paced, dynamic department where you will play a key role in providing holistic assessments and interventions for a diverse range of patients. You’ll collaborate with consultants, nurses, physiotherapists, and other healthcare professionals to ensure optimal outcomes for patients and support hospital flow.

As a Band 7 Occupational Therapist, you will be responsible for delivering patient-centered therapy and ensuring safe, effective discharge planning. The role involves managing complex caseloads, adopting coaching and mentoring approaches with junior staff, and contributing to service development and quality improvements.

We need an innovative team player to work alongside the service lead and peers, developing this newly established service and guiding the team in its growth. You will also oversee supervision, training, and development for the team, attend clinical governance meetings, and contribute to departmental and Trust improvements.

Learning and personal development are encouraged, with a well-established appraisal system and funding for relevant external and internal courses.

Main duties of the job:

• Clinical Expertise: Provide expert assessment and treatment for patients presenting with acute medical, trauma related, and complex functional needs in the ED. This includes rapid functional assessment for patients with conditions such as falls, delirium, frailty syndromes, cognitive impairments, safeguarding concerns and functional decline.
• Discharge Planning: Formulate and implement timely, patient-centred discharge plans in a high-pressure ED setting. Work closely with patients, carers, and the multidisciplinary team to ensure safe discharge home or onward referral, helping to prevent unnecessary admissions and support effective hospital flow.
• Supervision & Mentorship: Provide clinical supervision, mentoring, and support for staff working in the emergency department and SDEC. Promote reflective practice and ongoing development in a rapidly evolving clinical environment.
• Service Improvement: Actively contribute to the development and refinement of the emergency department occupational therapy service. Participate in quality improvement initiatives, governance activities, and service evaluations to ensure high standards of care and innovative practice.

Our people are our greatest asset. When we feel supported and happy at work, this positivity reaches those very people we are here for, the patients. Engaged employees perform at their best and our Equality, Diversity & Inclusion (EDI) initiatives contribute to cultivate a culture of engagement. We have four staff networks, a corporate EDI Team and a suite of programmes and events which aim to insert the 5 aspirations:

• Improving representation at senior levels of staff with disabilities, from black, Asian, and ethnic minorities background, identify as LGBTQ+ and women, through improved recruitment and leadership development.
• Widening access (anchor institution) and employability.
• Improving the experience of staff with disability.
• Improving the EDI literacy and confidence of trust staff through training and development.
• Making equalities mainstream.

Detailed job description and main responsibilities:

JOB PURPOSE: The Occupational Therapy Team Lead provides professional and clinical leadership to Occupational Therapy staff in the Medical Team based at the QEH site. The post holder supervises the day to day running of the medical Occupational Therapy team and is line managed by the Occupational Therapy Site Lead at QEH. To achieve this, the post holder works in close collaboration with the OT Site Lead QEH, and the other Band 7 Occupational Therapy Team Leads.

The Occupational Therapy Team Lead is a highly experienced clinician in medicine particularly neurology who independently manages a significant and highly specialised clinical caseload. In conjunction with the OT Site Lead, the post holder coordinates a rolling programme of education, clinical evaluation, audit and research within the pathway team at QEH. As part of the senior clinical Occupational Therapy team on the QEH site, the post holder will deputise for the Occupational Therapy Site Lead QEH as required. The post is based on the Queen Elizabeth site but may at times be asked to work on other sites in order to maintain service levels. 7-day working for Therapies is in place within the Trust and the postholder is required to undertake a different working pattern, including weekends, in the future.

KEY RELATIONSHIPS:

• INTERNAL INCLUDE: Therapy Managers and Therapy leads, own Teams, referring clinicians, MDTs, on ward, therapy administrative team, HR, other Trust Committees and own clinical teams.
• EXTERNAL INCLUDE: GPs, Community Services, Social services, Local authorities, AHP managers and leads, Voluntary services, College of Occupational Therapists, Health professions council, DoH Networks and Policy Groups, Higher Education Institutes, Colleges and Schools, NHSE.

DUTIES AND RESPONSIBILITIES:

• To undertake all aspects of clinical duties and to carry a significant caseload of patients as an autonomous practitioner, including those with highly complex presentations.
• To work at an advanced level and to be professionally and legally accountable for a highly-specialised patient caseload and to decide priorities for own work area, balancing other patient related and professional demands.
• To be professionally and legally responsible and accountable for all aspects of own work, and of the pathway teams’ work. This will include the management of clinical risk, clinical governance, knowledge of indications and precautions of chosen techniques in line with National and Trust clinical guidelines and protocols where they exist.
• To assess patients’ capacity, gain valid informed consent to treatment and where such capacity is lacking/absent to work within a legal framework in the management of the patient.
• To undertake the comprehensive assessment and accurate diagnosis of patients, including those with an extremely complex presentation, using investigative, palpatory, analytical and clinical reasoning skills.
• As appropriate to the job role, to request diagnostic procedures that will inform clinical decision making.

Please read attached Job description for full details. All clinical staff are accountable and responsible for their own clinical competence and should limit their actions to those for which they are deemed competent in line with guidance from their professional bodies.

Person specification:

• Education and Qualifications: Diploma / Degree in Occupational Therapy. HCPC registration. Working at M level (e.g. module) or equivalent experience/qualification. Undertaken a range of relevant postgraduate courses. Member of Special interest Group. MSC in related subject. BAOT.
• Skills and Attributes: The ability to discuss advanced clinical reasoning in the management of highly complex cases. The ability to identify and act upon adverse clinical signs. Able to communicate at advanced level including complex information to patients, Carers, team and other health professionals. Excellent ability to work effectively in a team environment. Excellent time management skills with ability to organise, prioritise and delegate. Ability to self-direct learning, be critical and evaluate own learning needs, demonstrated in a CPD portfolio. Demonstrates excellent leadership ability and motivational skills. Able to provide a high standard of clear concise, written and verbal reports in English. Ability to collect and present data for service performance information. Excellent teaching and presentation skills. IT skills, including using hospital databases, word processing, excel, email and power point. Ability to manage own stress and work in a stressful and unpredictable environment. To show empathy and fairness to give support to others. IT skills - Ability to create and/or format data and/or complex spreadsheets using computerised systems.
• Experience: Wide-ranging post graduate Occupational Therapy experience including having held senior position in relevant speciality. Significant experience of relevant specialist pathway. Experience of working autonomously and unsupervised. Experience in managing limited resources and high workloads. Experience in leading and completing audit and evidence-based projects. Experience of supervision and appraisal of Occupational Therapy staff and students with ability to give constructive feedback and performance management when necessary. Evidence of actively participating in in-service training and presenting to large MDT groups, undergraduate and postgraduate staff and evaluating effectiveness of training. Experience and ability to work collaboratively within MDT. Evidence of leading change management and innovation in clinical practice. Previous experience at band 7 Level. Research experience including publication in recognised journal. Presented at national level or external courses relevant to subject area. Actively involved in developing research links with other academic institutions. Evidence of presenting to MDT groups, undergraduate and postgraduate staff.
• Knowledge: Extensive specialist knowledge of evidenced based Occupational Therapy for designated specialist pathway. In-depth knowledge of national guidelines and standards pertaining to specialist pathway and Occupational Therapy. Robust understanding of clinical governance and its implication for Occupational Therapy. Awareness and understanding of NHS structure, current issues and developments. Understanding of the legal responsibilities of the profession.
• Other: Self-motivated with a clear vision of role / commitment to speciality. Demonstrate professional independence. Work in a flexible manner and adapt to changing environments. Physically fit and able to comply with Trusts moving and handling guidelines, therapeutic handling. Professional manner and appearance. Available for extended hours and 7-day working patterns. Use of own transportation.

We reserve the right to close the post before the stated closing date. We do not contact applicants with the outcome of the shortlisting. If you have been shortlisted, you will receive an invite to an assessment day or interview.

As a local employer and anchor institution we work closely with our community to recruit locally and we welcome applications from the widest variety of people to ensure our workforce are reflective of the local communities which we serve. We encourage all suitable candidates to apply including if you are Black, Asian or other ethnic minorities, live with a disability (visible or not) or are LGBT+. We have a number of active staff networks including Disability, LGBT+, Multicultural Inclusion and Women’s staff networks to bring staff together and celebrate diversity across our whole workforce.

Please note: Information provided during recruitment and pre‑employment checks must be accurate. Misrepresentation may be investigated as fraud and could lead to withdrawal from the process, professional sanctions or criminal action.

Please note: that sponsorship under the Skilled Worker route is subject to Trust allocation and UK Visas and Immigration (UKVI) approval.

Use of AI in recruitment: We may use artificial intelligence (AI) tools to support the initial review of applications against the essential criteria for this role. Where AI is used, it will support rather than replace human decision-making, and applications will remain subject to appropriate human review.

You must have appropriate UK professional registration. This post is subject to the Rehabilitation of Offenders Act 1974 (Exceptions) Order 1975 (Amendment) (England and Wales) Order 2020 and it will be necessary for a submission for Disclosure to be made to the Disclosure and Barring Service.

Application numbers: To ensure fairness and manageable shortlisting processes, some vacancies may have an application cap. This means the vacancy will close once a set number of applications have been received even if this happens before the advertised closing date. All applications received before the cap is reached will be considered equally and assessed against the person specification.