Senior Psychiatric Liaison Practitioner in Honiton

A Senior clinician in the psychiatric liaison service will be a combined leadership and clinical role. Expectations of high level evidenced based clinical contact with complex and challenging cases and role modelling to the wider service. Assessments, documentation and communication written and verbal will be of a high standard and in line with service and trust aims and goals. A part of a team the post holder will supervise other members of the team and support improvement in all areas that the service provides. Working combined shifts over a 24hr 7 day service it is important to communicate your own well being and recognise the needs and support where possible the wellbeing of your colleagues.

Main duties of the job:

• Assessment and signposting.
• Supporting the acute trust to aid smooth and timely discharges from hospital.
• Documenting and communicating interactions on systems both from the ELFT and Acute trust to maintain clarity in care planning.
• Supervisory responsibility.
• Deputising for clinical lead and operational lead as required.
• Improvement projects.
• Teaching to acute colleagues informally and formally depending on setting.

About us:

Our mission is to make a positive difference to people's lives by improving the quality of life for all we serve. Our values are: We Care, We Respect, We are Inclusive - so we are looking for people who live and breathe these qualities when supporting service users and carers, and in their relationships with colleagues in the Trust and our partner organisations.

Purpose of the Job:

The post holder will be part of the Psychiatric Liaison Service (PLS) which is a model of psychiatric liaison serving the Luton & Dunstable Hospital including the Emergency Department and inpatient wards. The service is commissioned to carry out the following:

• Provide a single multidisciplinary mental health and drug assessment service.
• Provide expert advice on the management, treatment and diagnosis of patients to acute hospital clinicians.
• Provide support to acute hospital clinicians.
• Provide training to acute hospital clinicians.
• To improve health outcomes for patients.
• To reduce length of stay for patients.
• To reduce readmissions to the Emergency Department.
• To reduce re-attendances to the Emergency Department.
• To improve the experience of patients who receive care in the acute hospital.
• To reduce direct admissions to care homes.
• To improve staff awareness, skills and knowledge in mental health and drugs and alcohol.

The Service will operate a 24 hour a day, 7 day a week service for people aged 16 years and above who present with a suspected mental health, self-harm or drug and alcohol problem. The service will maintain focus on identifying, assessing and care planning for older people. The post holder will be expected to be self-motivating and autonomous with the ability to demonstrate accurate formulations of mental state, risk and need for people over the age of 16 years taking into account medical and social factors and referring on to other disciplines in the team or other agencies as appropriate within the given timeframes for the service.

KEY PERFORMANCE AREAS:

• Be responsible for the full mental health assessment of care needs of patients presenting with a wide variety of clinical conditions within the Emergency Department and the acute hospital.
• Have freedom to act, particularly, but not exclusively, around discharge and follow-up in line with the PLS key performance indicators on discharge.
• Provide a comprehensive consultation-liaison service to the other medical teams and individual clinicians.
• Take an active role in contributing to meeting the PLS key performance indicators as specified in the service specification.
• Provide independent judgement and advice on complex facts and situations.
• Be required to teach other nursing and non-nursing staff.
• Assist in maintaining the PLS Teams ward-based patient caseload.
• Be responsible for specific clinical and managerial projects.
• Participate fully in quality assurance initiatives.
• Act as a role model in providing a service for people above the age of 16 years with mental health problems.
• Initiate and participate in audit/research projects associated with the work of the service.
• Act as shift co-ordinator as designated on a regular basis.

Clinical Responsibilities:

• Have a wide base of clinical skills, knowledge and experience appropriate to the needs of individual patients over the age of 16 years.
• Carry out specialist assessments and develop, implement, evaluate and document specialist management plans.
• Provide a consultation-liaison service to clinicians and clinical teams within the acute hospital.
• Demonstrate a high standard of record keeping and documentation.
• Work with colleagues to develop and promote the philosophy of the PLS.
• Deliver care that is evidence based, reflecting current best practice and research.
• Actively participate in structured regular management supervision.
• Demonstrate clinical excellence and high standards of nursing practice to other colleagues.
• Demonstrate a sound understanding of the legal and ethical issues in caring for the mentally ill.

Communications:

• Demonstrate the ability to receive and give complex clinical details clearly.
• Demonstrate the ability to communicate clearly, sensitively and with compassion.
• Demonstrate a high level of interpersonal skills, self-awareness and empathy in all communications.
• Demonstrate the ability to develop and maintain good working relationships with colleagues.

Management Responsibilities:

• Take responsibility for agreed clinical, managerial and strategic projects.
• In the absence or request of operational manager; take responsibility for the immediate management of the team and patient care provided.
• Ensure the promotion of health and safety regulations.
• Supervise, monitor and appraise the performance of junior staff.
• Assist the shift co-ordinator and senior management to exercise day to day control of the budget for the service.

Person Specification:

• Education: Health and social care registration SW/RMN, Mentorship/supervisor training.
• Experience: Minimum 2 Years post qualification, Leadership experience, Teaching and delivering training.
• Knowledge: Biopsychosocial assessment process, Age related illness, Liaison service knowledge, Mental health act, capacity act and care act knowledge.

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 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.

Applicants must have current UK professional registration.