Out of Hours Bed Manager Maidstone

Are you a natural problem-solver who thrives in a fast-paced environment? Do you possess the calm, reassuring communication skills needed to navigate urgent care pathways? If so, why not apply for our Out of Hours Bed Manager position.

You will work in the UECCC to co-ordinate appropriate admissions into an Acute Psychiatric bed across a 7-day period shift pattern, with 2 shift patterns 08:00 - 20:30 and 20:00 - 08:30. As an Out-of-Hours Bed Manager, you will be at the absolute heart of our night-time operations. Your main mission will be to coordinate safe, appropriate, and timely admissions into our Acute Psychiatric beds across Kent and Medway. Working closely with our Purposeful Admission Protocol, you will ensure that every patient gets the right bed, at the right time, for the right reasons.

What You'll Be Doing:

• Guiding the Journey: Take the lead on the urgent and emergency admission process during the night, ensuring smooth transitions for patients in need of acute care.
• Building Bridges: Work collaboratively with a wonderful network of community colleagues and external healthcare providers to streamline patient pathways.
• Solving Complex Puzzles: Facilitate multi-professional conference calls and meetings, bringing people together to expedite admission planning and unblock any challenges across the system.
• Sharing Knowledge: Play a pivotal role in mentoring, educating, and developing our staff to ensure a consistent, high-quality approach to patient flow.

Main duties of the job:

• To work as a key member of the UECCC Team.
• To support the General Manager/Service Manager to deliver key performance outcomes as agreed.
• To follow discharges out, as agreed and take referrals of those requiring admission.
• To take escalation calls from other Trusts and act accordingly.
• To participate in the needs led approach/purposeful admission protocol to patient admission taking into account local and national priorities and pressures.
• To ensure out of hours an on-call Consultant has been contacted for advice.
• To ensure accurate information is collected and verified regarding admission data as required by the General Manager.
• To participate in, and if necessary, lead, patient flow conference calls.
• Act as a resource and provide expert advice for staff on issues around admission and least restrictive options.

We are Kent and Medway Mental Health NHS Trust. We care for the mental health and wellbeing of people across Kent and Medway and are rated 'Good' by the Care Quality Commission (CQC). Our teams support children, young people and adults with a wide range of mental health needs. We also provide specialist services, including all-age eating disorder services and neurodevelopmental assessments for children and young people, such as autism and ADHD. Because we work across the whole county and across hospital and community settings, we can make care more joined up and easier to access for the people we serve. Our vision is simple: we are here to help communities not just live with mental illness, but live well. It's why we're passionate about working with communities to make mental health care better for everyone. Everything we do is guided by our values: caring, inclusive, curious and confident. Join us if you share our passion for better mental health care and want to be part of a team that's working well together.

Who We Are Looking For:

• A collaborative team player who excels at building strong, professional relationships under pressure.
• Someone with excellent communication skills—whether you're speaking to a community nurse at 2 AM or leading a multi-agency clinical call.
• An adaptable professional who is comfortable working a 7-day shift pattern (predominantly nights) and can step in to support the day team when needed.
• A compassionate individual dedicated to maintaining the high standards of our Purposeful Admission Protocol.

Please refer to the attached job description for the full details on the responsibilities and person specification.

Person Specification:

Training, Qualifications and Registration:

• Essential: Clinical qualification e.g. RMN, Occupational Therapist or Mental Health Social Worker.
• Be a mentorship/practice educator or have experience.

Knowledge and Skills:

• Essential: Excellent interpersonal skills, with the ability to exert influence, negotiation and develop a meaningful and sensitive communication style to build and sustain working relationships.
• Bed management knowledge.
• IT skills.

Experience:

• Essential: A minimum of 2 years previous experience as a Band 5 (or equivalent social work grade) with mental health experience, including functional and organic disorders. Based on need not age.
• Inpatient experience.

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.

Applicants must have current UK professional registration.