Senior Mental Health Practitioner FPCC Gloucestershire

Job summary

This role is offered on a permanent basis . The hours are full-time, 37.5 hours per week.

Are you someone who thrives in a fast paced environment?

Do you have a passion for being the first point of contact for those in need of mental health support when they need us the most? Can you provide a voice of reassurance and support? If so, we are looking for individuals like you to make a real difference!

Using your experience, you will be duty clinician and supervisor to a shift that consists of Band 7 Clinical Leads, Band 6 Senior Mental Health Practitioners, Band 5 Mental Health Practitioners Band 3 Call Handlers, and students, supervising, mentoring and coaching to develop their skills and playing a key role in the development of the service.

Our First Point of Contact Centre (FPCC) is a priority one urgent response telephone service launched in 2019. Since then it has consistently demonstrated itself to be an integral part of our mental health services. We have improved access to mental health services for individuals who need it, whilst reducing demands on care and treatment delivery services.

We are continuing to evolve and build our team and the support we offer as part of the development of the National Mental Health NHS 111 response model. Which involves 24/7 working, including night shifts.

Main duties of the job

Forget caseloads and case management.

In the FPCC your skills and expertise will be in triaging patients at the point of contact, providing mental health support and identifying what service will best meet their needs moving forwards.

The spectrum of mental health needs varies significantly; you will have the ability to offer advice, guidance and support to those in mental health distress. This will have a routine, urgent or crisis response. Equally, you will have the ability to respond to urgent referrals with more acute needs and higher risks in the community.

You will be handling a wide range of calls, and thriving amid the challenges this presents. This requires an outstanding amount of resilience and emotional strength as you will be supporting unwell and distressed patients at their time of need, their families, carers, emergency services, and referrers who may need support. Your support will make a difference to lives and requires people who can be there for those that need it, sometimes in the face of adversity and trauma.

We're currently recruiting and staff can chose to work short shifts or long shift.

Short Shifts/Long Day Shifts

• 7am - 3pm
• 9am - 5pm
• 2pm - 10pm
• 7am to 8pm
• 9am - 10pm

Night shifts

• 21:30hrs - 07:20hrs

Flexible working options can be considered if this fits with the individual and service requirements

About us

We have a skilled and dedicated workforce of over 5000 colleagues working in a diverse range of services over 55 sites and within people's homes. We strive to enable a welcoming workplace culture that builds and celebrates civility, inclusivity and diversity, while providing a sense of belonging and trust.

Annual staff surveys, regular Pulse surveys and other engagement opportunities provide our people with lots of opportunity to tell us about their experiences of working with us. In the latest staff survey, 61% of colleagues gave us their views. It was great to hear that:

72% of colleagues would recommend the Trust as a place to work, ranking us 1st for Provider Trusts in the South West region on this question.

76% would recommend the standard of care provided in our services if a friend or relative needed treatment, also ranking us 1st in the South West region.

81% said that care of patients and service users is the Trust's priority, compared with an average in comparable NHS Trusts in England of 64%.

This high-level overview shows we are in a healthy position, with higher scores than average for comparable organisations, alongside a great response rate, indicating good staff engagement. However, we also know we have plenty of room for improvement in many areas. To that end, we continue to prioritise and invest in our commitment to genuinely becoming a Great Place to Work with consistent top-quartile performance in the annual staff survey and Pulse surveys.

Details

Date posted
11 September 2026

Pay scheme
Agenda for change

Band
Band 6

Salary
£39,959 to £48,117 a year
per annum

Contract
Permanent

Working pattern
Full-time

Reference number
327-26-719

Job locations
First Point of Contact Centre,
Edward Jenner Court, 1010 Pioneer Avenue, Brockworth
Gloucestershire
GL34AW
United Kingdom

Job description

Job responsibilities

Youll be part of the team that provides the first stage in the Trusts care navigation system receiving requests using contact methods, including letters, e-mail and telephone.

We provide a central resource for referrers and Trust staff to ensure the effective receipt and subsequent processing of referrals into our services. We further provide effective signposting to services external to the Trust.

We accept routine, urgent and crisis referrals, each having a specific pathway to follow. Routine and urgent referrals are usually received by e‑mail to our FPCC referral inbox. Crisis referrals are received via the telephone.

We provide an effective first point of contact, a link with primary and secondary services, partner agencies and organisations outside of the trust.

The service focus is to ensure callers or requests are directed to the appropriate person/resource in the Trust in the most effective manner. Where the request is for advice or a specialist opinion, the centre staff will link the request to either internal or external sources in a timely manner. The intention will be to leave the person making the request, feeling valued and satisfied with the outcome, before ending the contact. Where an immediate response for advice/specialist opinion is not available staff will work to an agreed response time, which will be shared with the person making the request.

You will have support from Senior Health Practitioners colleagues (Band 6), Clinical Lead B7's, and the Operational Manager to help your development and youll be able to share your knowledge and experience with our Call Handlers (Band 3) and Mental Health Practitioners (Band 5).

• The post holder will be part of the Gloucestershire Health and Care NHS Foundation Trust First Point of Contact Centre (FPCC) and will manage and triage mental health referrals coming in to into the Trust.
• The service is a professional referral service accepting telephone, letter, or e‑mail referrals from patients, carers, GPs, Health Care Professionals within mental health working, police, ambulance staff, and some external agencies this list is not exhaustive.
• The practitioners within the team are responsible for initial screening, triaging and the allocation of referrals to the appropriate service within the Trust or signposting to a relevant external service.
• The post holder will be responsible for triaging referrals, routine and urgent and crisis made to the Trust and directing them to the most appropriate service.

Person Specification

Qualifications

Essential

• Registered Mental Health Practitioner status or Registered Practitioner with significant mental health experience (nursing, allied health, and social care professionals) registered with a governing body for example the NMC

Lenghth and Nature of Experience

Essential

• Demonstrable and significant post qualification experience in mental health or related areas
• Sound experience of first line assessments including assessment of patient safety
• Proven skills in multi-disciplinary working, with experience of communicating across teams, stat and non-stat agencies and GP's.

Professional/Managerial/Specialist Knowledge

Essential

• Sound understanding of the requirements of primary care and secondary care
• A sound understanding of the Mental Health Act and other associated legislation

Desirable

• Experience of using psychological treatments e.g. CBT/Anxiety management ...
• A good understanding of other community/voluntary facilities that may be of help to people with a mental health problem.

Disclosure and Barring Service Check

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.

Certificate of Sponsorship

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. For further information visit the UK Visas and Immigration website (Opens in a new tab).

From 6 April 2017, skilled worker applicants, applying for entry clearance into the UK, have had to present a criminal record certificate from each country they have resided continuously or cumulatively for 12 months or more in the past 10 years. Adult dependants (over 18 years old) are also subject to this requirement. Guidance can be found here Criminal records checks for overseas applicants (Opens in a new tab).

UK Registration

Applicants must have current UK professional registration. For further information please see NHS Careers website (opens in a new window).

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. For further information visit the UK Visas and Immigration website (Opens in a new tab).

From 6 April 2017, skilled worker applicants, applying for entry clearance into the UK, have had to present a criminal record certificate from each country they have resided continuously or cumulatively for 12 months or more in the past 10 years. Adult dependants (over 18 years old) are also subject to this requirement. Guidance can be found here Criminal records checks for overseas applicants (Opens in a new tab).

Applicants must have current UK professional registration. For further information please see NHS Careers website (opens in a new window).