Senior Occupational Therapist

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Joining #TeamNELFT means you'll become part of a welcoming and supportive working environment. We're CQC rated Good, and we want you to join us on the journey towards an Outstanding rating. NELFT has sites across North East London, Essex, Kent and Medway. We provide community and mental healthcare services to adults and children within these areas.

The Trust has award winning equality and diversity initiatives and staff health and wellbeing activities. We invest heavily in your development, because when you are valued and supported, we provide the best care to our patients. We are a Level 3 Disability Confident Leader, have been featured in the Working Families Top 10 Employers benchmark for three consecutive years, and we have achieved a Carers UK Level 1 Accreditation. Along with our staff networks and training opportunities, we work hard to embed a just and compassionate culture here at NELFT.

Find out more about NELFT careers and what makes our Trust a great place to work, in this video

Job overview

Full time Band 7 Occupational Therapist Thurrock Integrated Community Team (ICT).

The successful applicant must be flexible, a good team worker, able to working under pressure, have excellent interpersonal and IT skills and be able to communicate effectively with patients, carers and other members of the MDT. They will also need to be able to travel effectively through out the area of Thurrock.

The post holder will be a qualified Occupational therapist responsible for the OT service across Thurrock ICT. The post holder will be required to lead with clinical expertise offering enhanced clinical input in complex cases providing assessments, interventions, reports and recommendations. They will ensure evidence based interventions are at the forefront of the therapeutic offer.

Be responsible for the management of the therapy team, providing supervision, support and guidance, alongside the other Band 7 Therapy staff. They will have a commitment to collaborative working and actively support and liaise with other health and social care professionals and agencies. They will lead and advocate for the occupational therapy role within the service.

We support a wide variety of patients including neurological, orthopaedics, falls, long term conditions, Frailty and musculoskeletal issues allowing staff to get broad experience across different specialities.

The teams operational hours are Monday to Friday 8:30-4:30 or 9am-5pm.

Main duties of the job

-Leading in the clinical oversight of occupational therapy service provision

-Management and supervision of occupational therapy team across Thurrock ICT

-Proactive in service development projects to consistently achieve targets to improve the therapy service

- OT recruitment and retention

-Provide specialist assessments and OT interventions

-Provide expert advise in clinical recommendations to both OT and MDT relating to the holistic provision of OT

-Auditing outcome measures to ensure the therapeutic offer is under pinned by evidence based practice. Ensuring these are linked to governing bodies, HCPC, BAOT, NICE, CQC, QNIC

Working for our organisation

Starting with NELFT

NELFT place a great deal of importance on new starters being properly welcomed and inducted into the Trust. All new starters will join the Trust on the first Monday of each month and will undertake a comprehensive induction of up to two weeks which will include mandatory training, systems training and the allocation of equipment. As part of the process new starters will have the opportunity to also meet the executive team, senior managers and attend a number of drop in sessions focussing in engagement, health and wellbeing and key processes. The induction will be held at our head office in Rainham, Essex.

Probationary Period

This post will be subject to a probationary period. Internal applicants are exempt from the probationary period (unless you are an internal applicant currently part way through a probationary period or currently a bank member of staff).

High Cost Area Supplement

This role attracts a Fringe allowance of 5% of basic salary, subject to minimum payment of £1,258 and a maximum payment of £2,122.

Certificates of Sponsorship

Although we are a registered sponsor organisation, we are unable to offer sponsorship for all job roles. Please check your eligibility under the UKVI points based system.

Detailed job description and main responsibilities

Please see the attached job description and person specification for more information about this role and working at North East London NHS Foundation Trust. We encourage you to refer closely to this when completing your application.

1. Provide a range of specialist Occupational Therapy assessments to service users with complex health needs, taking into consideration the individuals physical/cognitive/ psychological abilities and needs, to identify their abilities and areas of difficulty.

2. To have clinical oversight of the OT team and the therapeutic offer in the service. Working closely with the Band 7 Physiotherapist and the other members of the Therapy team.

3. To adhered to evidence-based practice using reviews and outcome measures to inform the OT offer both as a clinician and as a supervisor of Junior OT's, Rehab assistants.

4. To be responsible for organising and prioritising own caseload in the day-to-day allocation of work, whilst being able to work flexibly to meet the needs of service users, their relatives and carers and the service.

5. To promote the empowerment and education of service users in relation to their holistic health. This focuses on the promotion of social inclusion, health promotion and relapse prevention.

6. To deputise when required in the absence of the Team clinical /Service Lead(s) and delegate appropriately to more junior members of staff, and support workers.

7. To have organisational knowledge relating to Trust protocols and procedures and adhere to them.

8. To be responsible for providing accurate records of information required by the Trust for audit purposes.

9. To ensure effective risk management at team level by accident/incident reporting, assessing and controlling risk and ensuring residual risks are added to the Trust register.

10. Provide specialist clinical advice to other team members on the suitability of various assessments and intervention methods where appropriate.

11. To take a lead role in the education, supervision and training of more junior members of staff, rehab assistants, support workers, and students.

12. Act as a role model for Occupational Therapy, raising the profile and value of the role within the service.

We welcome your application even if you do not meet all the criteria listed in the person specification. Any development needs to help you succeed in the role, can be discussed at the interview stage.

Use of AI

Applications for this role should be written by the applicant. If artificial intelligence (AI) programmes are used then the application may be rejected due to this document being an important part of the assessment process. This does not prevent applicants seeking appropriate support with applications should they need to for the purposes of any declared disability.

Person specification

Qualifications

Essential criteria

• Recognised full qualification in Occupational Therapy

Experience

Essential criteria

• Minimum 3+ years post grad experience
• Experience in community physical health setting
• Supporting Junior staff
• Working with complex cases
• Evidence of strong MDT working approach
• Evidence of outcome measures, audit and evidenced based practice

Registration

Essential criteria

• HCPC registration

Benefits

We believe in bringing your authentic and best self to work, in order to deliver the best care to our patients. We are committed to supporting our employees holistically. Here is a snapshot of what is on offer at NELFT:

• A long-standing and award-winning approach to equality and diversity with supportive networks for ethnic minority staff, staff with disabilities or long term/chronic conditions and LGBT staff.
• A commitment to supporting colleagues to achieve a work life balance, through flexible working opportunities and our effortsto support our working parents and carers. This has resulted in us being recognised as a 'Top 10 Family Friendly Employer' from the Working Families Charity.
• Proactive health and wellbeing support, including access to our employee assistance programme, staff psychological support, individual wellbeing conversations and a network of health and wellbeing ambassadors.
• Detailed information about our wellbeing and benefits offer can be found in this link.

As a flexible working friendly organisation, we want to be sure that you can work in a way that is best for us and for our patients, and for you. Speak to us about how we might be able to accommodate a flexible working arrangement whether that's a job share, part time hours or another flexible pattern.

Supporting our Armed Forces

We recognise the valuable contribution that the Armed Forces community make to our organisation. We have signed the Armed Forces Covenant and achieved Gold Award under the Armed Forces Employer Recognition Scheme. We have supportive policies, guaranteed interview schemes for veterans. reservists and military spouses and give additional leave to our Reservists so that they can attend their annual camp.

Equal opportunities employer

We are committed to equal opportunities and diversity and positively encourage applications from all sections of the community regardless of any protected characteristic.

We are a Disability Confident employer and have made the pledge to commit to employing more people with disabilities. If you require this application in another format i.e. Braille or audio tape please contact the recruitment team on 0300 300 1530 or email recruitment@nelft.nhs.uk.

Correspondence with us

You are advised to regularly check your emails (including any junk mail/spam folders) for correspondence related to this post.

In the event of a high number of responses to any advert, NELFT reserves the right to close the vacancy early. If you do not hear from us within three weeks of the closing date then please assume you have not been successful on this occasion.

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

• B7 OT JD and PS (PDF, 467.0KB)
• NELFT Application - Hints and Tips (PDF, 38.4KB)