Band 6 Specialist Practitioner - Bath

Job description

Job overview

This is a unique role within a dedicated overnight mental health service and would suit an existing Band 6 clinician with the skills, confidence and passion to deliver high quality crisis care and assessment.

The OOH Divisional Intensive Service delivers urgent and intensive overnight mental health support across Bath and North East Somerset, Swindon and Wiltshire (BSW), seven days a week. Operating as a stand alone team with a clear clinical identity and protected remit, the service will plat a critical role in supporting people at times of acute need, outside of traditional working hours.

The team work across two bases, Royal United Hospital (RUH) and Great Western Hospital, strengthening partnerships with acute services and reducing unnecessary travel for staff.

This overnight service comprises of 2 x Band 6 practitioners and a Band 4 Recovery Coordinator every night of the year, supporting and working alongside our colleagues in the acute hospitals.

Main duties of the job

You will work as part of a small out of hours team, triaging urgent mental health referrals and carrying out assessments of people attending the acute hospitals' Emergency Department in mental health crisis.

You will offer brief interventions to people in crisis, in person and on the telephone.

You will develop safety plans and carry out risk assessments with patients, carers and families.

You will liaise with professionals, partner agencies, carers and families, making onward referrals where appropriate, including safeguarding.

Working for our organisation

We are the lead provider of healthcare for people with serious mental illness, learning disabilities and autism across Bath and North East Somerset (BaNES), Swindon and Wiltshire, and Bristol, North Somerset and South Gloucestershire.

We aim to provide High Quality, Compassionate Care everywhere, every day. This means our services will be safe, clinically effective and provide a positive all round experience for our patients, families and carers. And we believe passionately in treating everyone with kindness, respect and empathy.

Key to this is providing a supportive and safe environment for our 4,000 staff where we all feel welcome and able to do the best we can for those we support. Our staff and teams work incredibly hard delivering services across more than 90 locations, covering 2,200miles, to more than 1.8million people.

At AWP we actively encourage applicants from all backgrounds; we are particularly keen to encourage applications from people from Black, Asian and minority ethnic backgrounds, those with disabilities and from the LGBTQ+ community. We want people to bring their unique blend of experiences, backgrounds, perspectives and knowledge to AWP, as diversity makes us stronger.

Detailed job description and main responsibilities

Working closely with the Team Manager and system partners, you will:

Provide visible, compassionate clinical and operational leadership to the overnight team.

Support high-quality assessment, intervention, and decision-making.

Support performance, quality, governance, and learning from incidents and feedback.

Support service development, embedding safe practice and a strong team identity.

Build and maintain effective partnerships with liaison services, intensive services, MHCAS, and acute trusts.

Ensure robust processes for admission, discharge, transfer, and handover of care.

Contribute to continuous improvement, service planning, and delivery of key performance standards.

To ensure the appropriate care pathway is identified focussed on the management of risk and prevent hospital admission for service users with the most complex and acute needs where appropriate.

To co-ordinate, undertake and/or support the specialist assessment of physiological and/or psychological functioning for service users with complex mental health and wellbeing needs, in an emergency for service users, who may be acutely unwell, distressed and in crisis.

To be responsible for, ensuring that calls made to OOHs enter an appropriate mental health care pathway using appropriate frameworks in line with evidence-based practice, including strategies to manage risk for service users with complex needs and their carers, bringing in other resources as required.

To develop and maintain, good partnership working with other services throughout all urgent care episodes, including core partnership working with staff and regular liaison with other statutory agencies, including the Police, Ambulance Service and Social Service Emergency Duty Teams, in addition to Primary Health Care Teams, inpatient and intensive services, the Third Sector and with nominated carers/advocates.

Develop and maintain communication with a wide range of people/services/ agencies about complex matters or in complex situations with the purpose of sharing, developing or resolving difficult or complex issues for the benefit of service users/carer and the service.

To represent the organisation in a range of circumstances, settings, presenting, facilitating or explaining as appropriate and dealing with any questions or difficulties as they arise.

To personally build, and lead others to build, hope, inspiring relationships with service users, which acknowledge the personal journey of each person, and focus on strengths and aspirations to allow the creation of meaningful personal recovery plans.

To be responsible for the protection of individuals from abuse and harm in line with local safeguarding policies and procedures, by developing and reviewing with others protection plans and management strategies, ensuring the appropriate sharing of information.

Personally and leading others to collaboratively and sensitively work with individuals with a range of mental health needs, to develop skills to manage their own health in accordance with their personal recovery plan, by actively promoting and using approaches which are affirming, build on strengths, identify past positive experiences and success, and use small steps to move towards the person's goal.

To work with the Team Manager to ensure the continuing improvements to the service in line with organisational goals.

To maintain health and social care records, ensuring both paper and electronic records are kept up to date in accordance with professional and organisational standards.

Report and record within agreed timeframes, all activity relating to information reporting and performance requirements.

To participate in, and deliver as required, management, caseload and clinical supervision in accordance with trust policy.

Demonstrate responsibility for developing own practice in line with professional qualifications and for the development of others, both practitioners, and those in training.

To adhere to professional codes of conduct ensuring required skills and competencies required are maintained.

To support workforce development through supervision, appraisal, and ongoing professional development.

Promote monitor and maintain best practice in health, safety and security of self and others, undertaking assessments and taking appropriate action where required.

Work with the Team Manager to develop a culture that promotes equality and values diversity.

To participate in local arrangements in order to ensure consistent care to service users across the local geography.

Most importantly, you will be compassionate, motivated, and values-driven, with the ability to create a supportive environment for both staff and the people who use our services.

Person specification

Qualifications

Essential criteria

• Registered practitioner with professional qualifications in a relevant discipline and experience of working in mental health. For nurses RMN (parts 3 or 13 of NMC register)
• Significant post-qualifying clinical experience obtained in a variety of settings, at band 6 or equivalent

Desirable criteria

• Experience gained working in both health and social care
• Formal post-graduate diploma level qualification in a relevant field eg Non Medical Prescribing, Clinical Leadership, AMHP, CBT, Brief Therapy

Experience and Knowledge

Essential criteria

• Experience in carrying out front line assessments
• Able to demonstrate understanding of the relevant legal frameworks/legislation, for example the Mental Health Act, Mental Capacity Act, and safeguarding
• Demonstrates significant experience with complex cases
• Demonstrates a detailed understanding in the theory and practice of Recovery Principles

Desirable criteria

• Experience of working within intensive, hospital liaison, or other urgent care services.
• Demonstrates significant experience in providing effective case/workload management
• Experience of motivating and engaging others in challenging situations to maintain progress towards goals.

Skills, Qualities and Abilities

Essential criteria

• Demonstrates empathy for individuals who have experienced mental health problems and ability to cope with behaviour which may be challenging
• A strong team player
• Has the ability to demonstrate excellent listening skills in challenging environments
• Demonstrates good verbal and written communication skills

We are proud to be fostering a diverse workforce that reflects our communities. A key commitment to this is improving staff representation from Black, Asian and Minority Ethnic communities, those from the LGBTQ+ communities, people with 'lived-experience' of mental health conditions and people living with disabilities,- we are a 'Disability Confident Employer' offering a guaranteed interview to Disabled applicants who meet the essential criteria. This includes people with a variety of disabilities and neurodivergent conditions (for example autism, ADHD, sensory, physical and learning disabilities).

We encourage applications from people who wish to work on a flexible basis, recognising that flexibility may mean a range of different working patterns and hours, we do our utmost to work with our staff to meet their needs and the needs of our service users.

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