Specialist Occupational Therapist in Chorley

We want talented and enthusiastic people from all backgrounds to join #TeamMWL, with us you can learn, grow and develop yourself and your career, realising your true ambitions and aspirations. Whatever you’re looking for in your career, you’ll find it here at MWL.

Job overview:

• Band 6 Specialist Occupational Therapist
• Trauma and Orthopaedic Therapy Team
• 33.5hrs / 0.89wte
• Fixed term contract from March 2026 to end of February 2027

An exciting opportunity has arisen for an enthusiastic, hardworking, motivated Occupational Therapist to join our Trauma and Orthopaedic Team. The team provides an inpatient service to three dedicated Orthopaedic wards - elective surgery, trauma and fractured neck of femur. We also cover a day case ward, a paediatric ward and outreach and outpatient clinics. This post is an excellent opportunity for an experienced Band 5 or a current Band 6 looking for a challenge and aiming to develop not only their specialist skills but also managerial and leadership skills.

Main duties of the job:

• As a forward-thinking team, we provide a 7 day service, including a later hours service, up to 6.30pm to help facilitate patient discharge.
• The successful candidate will participate in the weekend and later hours rota, working 5 days a week over the 7 days that the service is provided.
• The successful candidate will have some experience in the trauma and orthopaedic field, be able to communicate effectively and have good organisational and time management skills.
• The ability to work both individually and as a member of a team and to prioritise activity is a key requirement of this post.

Working for our organisation:

Mersey and West Lancashire Teaching Hospitals NHS Trust serves a population of over 600,000 with a workforce of over 10,500 dedicated and skilled staff across 21 sites.

Our services include:

• Acute Care: Providing emergency and maternity services at Whiston, Southport and Ormskirk hospitals, and medical and surgical specialties across all our sites.
• Primary Care: Providing primary care services at Marshalls Cross Medical Centre situated in St Helens Hospital.
• Community Services: Providing adult community services for St Helens and a wheelchair service in Chorley, South Ribble, and West Lancashire.
• Specialist Regional Services: We provide the Mersey Regional Burns & Plastic Surgery Unit at Whiston Hospital and the Spinal Injuries Unit at Southport Hospital to more than 4 million people across the whole of Merseyside, West Lancashire, Cheshire, Isle of Man and North Wales.

Achievements:

• Rated Outstanding by CQC Inspection August 2018
• Top 100 places to work in the NHS (NHS Employers & Health Service Journal)
• National Preceptorship Accreditation (2023) for Nursing & AHP Preceptorship Programme.

You will be expected to undertake the Trusts’ commitment to safeguarding and promoting the welfare of children, young people and vulnerable adults.

Detailed job description and main responsibilities:

• Deliver a high standard of evidence based care.
• Be confident in their assessment and decision making.
• Work with the MDT in leading and supporting others in the discharge planning process including making recommendations about individual rehabilitation needs and discharge/placement requirements.
• Work closely with senior therapy colleagues to ensure the efficient running of the team and department. This will include coordination of the workloads within the team.
• Identify areas to improve and develop and lead in projects to achieve change.
• Supervise therapy assistants, rotational Occupational Therapists and students on clinical placement within the speciality.
• The ability to work closely with Physiotherapists and undertake generic therapy assessments and treatments to a high level.
• Have previous experience of working with Orthopaedic patients.
• Have the ability to work flexibly and adaptably to changing working patterns.

Our philosophy is to keep the patient at the heart of everything we do. We look for people who are willing to go the extra mile, not because they are asked to, but because they are committed to being part of a healthcare team that delivers an excellent caring service to our patients.

In return for your hard work and dedication we can offer a friendly and welcoming team and all the support and continuing professional development you will need to make a difference to patients and staff. We have an innovative service of AHP’s with an excellent staff supervision system enabling our staff to be committed to developing both their service and themselves. Clinical Governance, research and audit activities are encouraged within the service.

Person specification:

• Qualifications: Degree in Occupational Therapist, HCPC registration, Clinical Educators Certificate, Post Grad accredited study e.g. MSc in relevant health studies.
• Experience: Advanced clinical knowledge relevant to the care environment and evidence of evidence-based practice in relevant health setting, awareness of own strengths and limitations, knowledge of relevant national policies and guidance and relevant assessment tools, experience of line managing a team including setting objectives, conducting appraisals and effective delegation and co-ordination, evidence of effective working within an MDT, experience of Service development, demonstrate experience of problem-solving approaches, demonstrates continuous Professional Development, audit and research in a clinical area.
• Skills: Demonstrates ability to motivate team performance to achieve objectives, ability to prioritise and work to deadlines, ability to communicate effectively in a variety of settings, accurate record keeping, report writing and IT skills including presentation skills, have a flexible approach to working with good time management.
• Other: Ability to travel various hospital locations by own car/assisted driver.

Thank you for considering an application to work for Mersey West Lancashire NHS Trust. MWL is an exciting and forward-thinking NHS Trust who are one of the best places to work for in England.

Equality, Diversity, and Inclusion: We actively cultivate a professional environment of fairness, equality, dignity, and respect for all individuals. We welcome individuals from all backgrounds and value the unique skills, perspective and experience you bring. We are grounded in the belief that diversity enhances our collective strength, fostering innovation and excellence within our workforce.

As a Disability Confident Leader, we commit to offering an interview to all disabled applicants who meet the minimum criteria for the job (the essential criteria) listed in the personal specification.

The Trust operates anonymous shortlisting where no personal information about you, including your name or personal details are shared with the recruiting manager.

Flexible Working: We actively support flexible working patterns throughout MWL.

Working for Team MWL: Staff recognition is especially important to us; as well as performance reviews and appraisals, we recognise staff through Employee of the month. Along with supporting you to achieve your career goals we offer a generous pension scheme, unsocial hours payments (where applicable), 27 days annual leave on commencement (pro rata) and access to a range of NHS discounts.

The Trust is a non-smoking across all our sites. Failure to follow this rule could lead to disciplinary action.

You must ensure that your application, including personal statements and behaviour examples, are truthful and factually accurate. Please note plagiarism can include presenting the ideas and experience of others, or generated by artificial intelligence, as your own.

The Trust will not accept applications which are found to be AI generated and will check all applications against AI detection software.

Additional Information: Before applying, we encourage you to review the Trusts Values and Behaviours which are We are KIND, We are OPEN, We are INCLUSIVE.

Good luck with your application. We hope to welcome you to Team MWL very soon.