Senior Mental Health Practitioner in Ipswich

Main area Community Mental Health - Adults Grade Band 6 Contract Permanent: 1 x full time post (37.5 hrs per week) Hours

• Full time
• Flexible working

37.5 hours per week (Core hours 0900 - 1700 (Monday - Friday)) Job ref 246-ESU8407847

Site Coastal Adult CMHT, Resource Centre Town Ipswich Salary £39,959 - £48,117 gross per annum (pro rata) Salary period Yearly Closing 19/11/2026 23:59

Norfolk and Suffolk NHS Foundation Trust provides child and adult mental health services, learning disability, wellbeing, older people's and eating disorder services across Norfolk and Suffolk.

We are committed to equality, diversity and inclusion and want to reflect the diversity of our local communities within our teams. We welcome applications from all talented individuals with the relevant qualifications, skills, knowledge and experience.

Please note due to the nature of our roles and patient demographic, you will be required to undertake physical intervention training and remain trained, as required by your role.

Job overview

We currently have a substantive Band 6 Community Mental Health Practitioner post within Coastal Adult CMHT open to applications from Registered Mental Health Nurses, Social Workers and Occupational Therapists. The team is based in East Ipswich and covers the area from East Ipswich through to rural areas of Felixstowe, Leiston and Aldeburgh. We are a recovery focussed, multi-disciplinary team providing an effective, supportive, and professional service for our Services users and Carers.

You will be a qualified professional with experience of supporting people and their families, preferably in the community.You will demonstrate a strong understanding of your role as a Care Coordinator/Assessor and join our dedicated multidisciplinary team working closely with a range of partners to provide appropriate community interventions for those individuals referred to the team.

We are looking for people to join us to continue to build on an already successful service.

We are committed to equality, diversity and inclusion and want to reflect the diversity of our local communities within our teams. We welcome applications from all talented individuals with the relevant qualifications, skills, knowledge, and experience.

Every individual makes a valuable contribution in the team. We are proud of our staff, and we are looking for people to join us in continuing to develop what the service of Coastal CMHT looks like.

Main duties of the job

You can expect a manageable case load and a supportive management team to ensure you’re able to work independently but support is never far away if needed.

The typical job roles and responsibilities will include:

• Working with other multi-disciplinary professionals within the team.
• Undertake initial assessments.
• Liaise with statutory and voluntary sectors
• The successful candidate will be an integral part of this team. You will contribute to meetings both within the service and in wider networks.
• Effective personal planning and organisation of daily workload.
• Flexible working and manage own working time effectively and accordingly to service demands.
• Managing and providing a high quality of care.
• Managing a case load of patient that have a range of mental health needs.
• Initiate, create and maintain therapeutic relationships with patients and carers, ensuring that practice is patient centred.
• Participating in the duty rota
• Practicing in line with policy, guidance and legislation.
• Carrying out risk assessment, crisis and safety planning.
• Working closely with the ACS mental health team to support our patients, meeting both their mental health needs and their Care Act needs.
• To support patients in being discharged back to primary care.

Working for our organisation

Here at NSFT we pride ourselves on being a welcoming, talented, friendly and supportive team who like nothing better than sharing experiences and learning from each other. In addition to ongoing training and development opportunities, we are committed to providing an environment in which you can thrive.

Why work for us? We have challenges as a Trust, but we have ambitious aspirations, are pushing ahead with exciting transformation work and we need dedicated individuals to support us on our journey. We have strong, established nursing networks coupled with an exceptional leadership team who will ensure you are truly cared for and cared about.

Why Norfolk and Suffolk? The people here are warm and welcoming, you’ll never be far from the beautiful coastline or Broads National Park. We’re an hour and a half away from London and have an international airport in Norwich too. Our villages, towns and cities are packed full of history, independent cafes, shops and theatres. We have excellent shopping, eating out, top ranking schooling and affordable house prices too.

Benefits included with this role are:-

• a comprehensive in house & external training programmes
• career progression
• starting annual leave of 27 days per annum increasing to 33 days pa based on length of service (plus paid bank holidays)
• NHS discounts and many more
• Relocation packages.

Detailed job description and main responsibilities

The post will involve you working autonomously in the community. You will engage with people, and using effective communication, often in difficult and stressful circumstances. You will be undertaking initial assessments, introducing services, making referrals to appropriate agencies, and monitoring and supporting situations to achieve positive outcomes for our service users and carers. You will be supported within your practice via a helpful team.

**Valid Driving Licence for the UK is required for this role.**

Interview dates are yet to be set; you will be contacted via email and invited to book a time. These emails may go to your SPAM, so please keep checking all your emails if applying.

Person specification

Qualifications

• Registered Mental Health or Learning Disability Nurse, Occupational Therapist OR Social Worker with the relevant professional registration
• Ongoing professional development working towards degree level ( if professional registration is following a diploma level course)
• Recognised Leadership/Management training

Experience

• Experience in the delivery of clinical interventions
• Experience in working in team delivering person centred treatment packages
• Experience in delivering group based interventions

Skills

• Care planning and Risk assessment knowledge and skills
• Prevention and Management of Suicide training
• Safeguarding training

Knowledge

• Up to date knowledge of legal and ethical frameworks including Mental Health Act
• Knowledge of medication and the monitoring of its effects

Other

• Ability and willingness to travel independently to meet the needs and requirements of the service

YOUR APPLICATION

We can provide all our job application materials in alternative formats so that these are accessible to everyone. Should you require any documents within this job pack in an alternative format, please do not hesitate to contact us at recruitment@nsft.nhs.uk.

PLEASE NOTE: If you use a hotmail, msn or yahoo e-mail account, you will need to check your "junk" mail regularly as these email providers will divert any communication from this Trust/NHS JOBS straight into your " junk" inbox.

EQUAL OPPORTUNITIESApart from its legal duties in relation to equality and diversity, the Trust recognises and actively promotes the benefits of a diverse workforce and is committed to treating all employees with dignity and respect regardless of race, gender, disability, age, sexual orientation, religion or belief.

As a part of the Disability Confident Employer Guaranteed Interview Scheme we interview all disabled applicants who meet the essential criteria for the job vacancy (outlined in the Person Specification).. We encourage you to indicate your eligibility through TRAC jobs when applying.

Disclosure and Barring Service Check

This post may be 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.

Employer certification / accreditation badges

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.

Name Adrian Matthews Job title Clinical Team Leader Email address adrian.matthews@nsft.nhs.uk Telephone number 01473 279200 Additional information

Christopher Salter (Non-Medical Prescriber) 01473 279200