Senior Liaison Nurse (Older Adults)

This job is brought to you by Jobs/Redefined, the UK's leading over-50s age inclusive jobs board.

Thank you for your interest for the North London NHS Foundation Trust (NLFT), it is an exciting time to join us and being part of our journey to improve mental health care across North London and deliver excellent services to our local people. We will achieve this through the North London Way, as we:

• Collaborate at every level by living our Values to create the right conditions for us all to work together.
• Develop our new Trust culture, to help make our new Trust a great place to work and to receive great care.
• Empower our teams to lead the planned improvements in our services, by skilling them and giving them the tools to make the changes.
• Focus on delivering excellence at every level to improve our performance and ensure consistently high-quality care across all our services.
• Ensure that research, Quality Improvement, and technology lead the way and are embedded in our services.
• Take a trauma informed approach to everything we do

We proactively welcome diversity in our workforce and pride ourselves on being an inclusive employer. We aim to recruit from our local communities and provide opportunities to all including apprenticeships, veterans, care leavers and more.

The North London Way to deliver, Better Mental Health, Better Lives, Better Communities.

Our trust website is: https://www.northlondonmentalhealth.nhs.uk/

Job overview

The North Middlesex Mental Health Liaison Service is under North London Foundation Trust (NLFT)provides rapid assessment and treatment of adult patients in the North Middlesex University Hospital (NMUH) who present with mental health difficulties. In addition, the service provides support and education to the staff of NMUH. The Service works according to the principles of the RAID (Rapid Assessment, Interface and Discharge) model.

The Mental Health Liaison Service delivers multidisciplinary specialist mental health input to both A&E and the wards of the North Middlesex University Hospital. The service is committed to providing timely and thoughtful input when invited, working closely together with our acute sector colleagues to support optimal, and patient-centred care. We seek to educate and empower the patients we work with and through both informal and formal training improve attitudes, knowledge, and skills among staff on mental health within the acute setting.

Main duties of the job

The service model is based on timely assessment of all patients (age 16 and over) presenting to A&E with mental health problems or who are in-patients of NMUH, 24 hours a day, 7 days a week. All clinical staff have the generic skills to assess all referred patients. Staff members specialise in the key areas of dementia, self-harm, alcohol problems, mental capacity issues, and medically unexplained symptoms.

The team has a high profile both in A&E and on the inpatient wards and endeavours to identify patients as early as possible in the care pathway where appropriate working collaboratively with our acute sector colleagues. We explore alternatives to in-patient care where clinically appropriate.

The team has good links with community services so that patients can be accurately signposted and make the transition from hospital to community care with minimal disruption and delay.

Working for our organisation

North London NHS Foundation Trust (NLFT) is committed to improving mental health care across North London to deliver excellent services to our local people.

Our Five-Year Strategy:

1. We will provide consistently high-quality care closer to home.

2. With our partners in North London and each borough we will ensure equity of outcome for all

3. We will offer great places to work, providing staff with supportive environment to deliver outstanding care.

4. We will be more effective as an organisation by pioneering research, quality improvement and technology.

In order to meet the needs of the Trust you may be required from time to time to work at different locations to your normal place of work. This may mean that you are required to work at any location that fall under Barnet, Camden, Enfield, Haringey or Islington. The Trust reserves the right to require staff to work at such other places or locations as it considers reasonable and necessary on a temporary or permanent basis.

Detailed job description and main responsibilities
• To act up in the absence of the Team Manager
• Directly line manage a multidisciplinary group of staff within the service
• To represent the service on the North Middlesex Hospital Trust Dementia Board
• In collaboration with other senior nurse colleagues, provide senior nursing advice and leadership within the liaison team and the wider service line and Trust, where required.
• To meet regularly with the Team Manager for managerial supervision.
• To meet regularly with senior colleagues to facilitate the liaison function of the service
• To collect, collate and submit information or statistics as requested.
• To ensure that all clinical and legal documents are completed correctly.
• To set objectives with and conduct regular appraisal of designated others.
• Maintain an effective working knowledge of the Mental Health Act (1983) (and subsequent revisions), the Mental Capacity Act working within the said legislation and statutory requirements/guidance. Advising others on these matters as appropriate
• To keep abreast of developments and research in older people's mental health nursing and liaison psychiatry and relate/apply/adapt recent research findings as appropriate to practice.
• To lead on and contribute to informal and formal training delivered to acute hospital staff as well as staff within BEH MHT and other agencies where required.
• To be an effective role model for all staff that you come into contact with, both within the Trust as well as other organization's.

This is not an exhaustive list, please see the attached Job Description and Person Specification for more information on the role requirements and duties.

Person specification

EDUCATION AND QUALIFICATIONS

Essential criteria

• A professional qualification relevant to mental health practice
• RMN/Degree/Diploma in Nursing
• CQSW/Degree/Diploma in Social Work
• Occupational Therapy registration

Desirable criteria

• Second Degree-Masters

EXPERIENCE AND KNOWLEDGE

Essential criteria

• Significant experience and knowledge of working with people with mental health problems.
• Experience in acute adult or CAMHS, multi-disciplinary community mental health services.
• A good understanding of recovery principles, the care programme approach and the role of secondary mental health services in the delivery of care

Desirable criteria

• Experience of giving written and oral evidence in a court or tribunal setting
• experience of working within the criminal justice system

SKILLS AND ABILITIES

Essential criteria

• Compassionate - Exceptional interpersonal skills with the ability to communicate effectively with patients, carers and relatives about complex and sensitive issues remaining sensitive and empathetic
• Excellent communication and interpersonal skills, including presentation of cases
• Ability to treat Service Users with respect and dignity, being culturally sensitive as appropriate, and consider the needs of the whole person
• Ability to manage autonomously within the criminal justice system as a silo worker

Desirable criteria

• Ability to manage conflicts within the criminal justice system achieving the best outcomes for those referred

References will be required to cover your last 3 years of employment/training. One has to be from your current or most recent employer and the others from your previous employer. The references should be from persons with management responsibility or HR.

If you have been unemployed for a period of four years or more, please give the details of your last employer and one character referee of your choice (not members of your family). If more applicable, references will be requested from your teacher or head of faculty. Please ensure you provide full contact details.

Vacancies that are advertised as Fixed Term Contracts will also be available as secondment opportunities for substantive internal staff.

Please be aware that your documents eg. Passport/NI Card, will be electronically scanned using Home Office accredited Verification System.

Due to the high number of applications that are received for some posts, we will close vacancies before the stated closing date once the first 50 applications are received. Therefore, please apply as soon as possible.

All non-medical posts with the Trust are subject to a probationary period of six months, during which time you will be required to demonstrate to the Trust's satisfaction, your suitability for the position in which you will be employed.

Should you not hear from us within three working weeks of the closing date for this post, then regretfully in this instance, you have not been shortlisted.

By applying for this role, you accept in the event you are successful that your personal data may be transferred from the Trust to another NHS organisation where your employment transfers within the NHS. This is in accordance with the streamlining programme which is aimed at improving efficiencies within the NHS both to make costs savings for NHS organisations but also to save you time when your employment transfers.

Employer certification / accreditation badges

Applicant requirements

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.

Documents to download

• Older Adult nurse specialist (PDF, 472.6KB)
• Older Adult nurse specialist (PDF, 272.6KB)
• NLFT Functional Requirement (PDF, 536.5KB)
• Additional wording for advert (PDF, 312.6KB)