Senior Practitioner

This post is open to experienced RMNs, mental health social workers or OTs who wish to broaden their work experience and further develop their skills and knowledge in the Croydon Assessment and Liaison team. Candidates should be aware that Croydon is currently undergoing a transition into Neighbourhood Centres. As part of this transformation, the successful candidates will be subject to role reallocation to different teams as a result.

We provide a service for people aged 18-65, who live in the London Borough of Croydon. We provide advice on the best treatment and care options available to people who have moderate to severe mental illness, such as anxiety, depression or personality disorder. We work with a team of health and social care professionals including nurses, doctors, and social workers. We also work closely with the patients, their carers and GPs.

The Senior Practitioner will assess and formulate a care plan and offer brief interventions (up to 12 weeks) with mental health service users, signpost to other services and discharge to primary care where appropriate/possible and supervise community practitioners.

Communications and Working Relationships: Multidisciplinary Team, other borough teams, external agencies and primary care - daily. The senior practitioner will support the team leader to ensure service delivery (i.e. meeting target measures, managing staff absences, supervision of junior staff) and provide management cover in the team leader's absence.

Our Values: We take pride in providing specialist care to our service users where our Trust values and our promise to be caring, kind, polite, prompt, honest, listen and do what I say I'm going to do is at the heart of everything we do. When you join us, you’ll be part of something special. As a Trust, we are happy to talk flexible working.

Some of our benefits include:

• Generous pay, pensions and leave
• Work-life balance with flexible working options
• Career development opportunities through mentoring, coaching, and talent programmes
• Keyworker housing available on selected sites
• NHS discounts from a variety of well-known retail brands
• Counselling services

Key Responsibilities:

1. Offering comprehensive, specialist, initial assessments and formulations to service users.
2. To manage the provision of appropriate interventions/treatments to a small caseload of service users experiencing transitional mental health problems.
3. To exercise autonomous professional judgement for the assessment, coordination and transfer to the relevant team of a designated caseload.
4. To provide comprehensive ongoing assessment and outcome monitoring of all allocated clients.
5. To participate in the team assessment and duty rota.
6. To liaise closely with crisis services and emergency out of hours services.
7. To provide evidence-based care as outlined in NICE guidance.
8. To attend regular clinical and management supervision and appraisal.
9. To provide specialist teaching and training of mental health professionals and other staff working in the service.
10. To undertake the mentorship of students working in the service.
11. To ensure the maintenance of standards of practice/Codes of Conduct according to the employer and regulating and professional bodies (NMC/HCPC).
12. To ensure client confidentiality is maintained at all times.
13. To maintain accurate and timely written records.
14. To form and maintain effective working relationships with all services in the borough.
15. To contribute to the development of best practice within the service.
16. To maintain up-to-date knowledge of legislation, national and local policies and procedures in relation to Mental Health and Primary Care Services.
17. To take responsibility for their own health and safety and the health and safety of colleagues, patients and the general public.
18. To deputise in the absence of the clinical lead.
19. To undertake any other duties as appropriate to grade as requested by the Clinical Service Lead.

All employees are expected to comply with statutory requirements and the Trust's employment policies while carrying out their work. All employees have a responsibility and a legal obligation to ensure that information processed for both patients and staff is kept accurate, confidential, secure and in line with the Data Protection Act (1998) and Security and Confidentiality Policies.

This post is one of continual development and the post holder will be encouraged to develop skills and capabilities, including participation in projects and training events. Accordingly, the range of duties and responsibilities outlined above may change from time to time to reflect the changing needs of the organisation.