Clinical Lead for Occupational Therapy - Band 8a

Clinical Lead for Occupational Therapy - Band 8a

8a Clinical Team Lead Children's Occupational therapist -

The successful candidate will be responsible for the day to day running of the Occupational therapy service to children and families in the London Borough of Newham. The service accepts referrals for children aged 0-18 years of age and is delivered in clinics, schools, nurseries and clients homes in the Borough.

As Clinical lead you will ensure effective delivery of clinical pathways, supervise and line manage staff, monitor service performance and budgets, and lead on continuous quality assurance and service improvement. You will be supported by the Head of Therapies. We are looking for someone with experience who is ready to take a lead.

Main duties of the job

The Clinical Lead will provide robust operational management and clinical leadership to the Children's Community Occupational Therapy Service, which inspires, motivates and empowers the delivery of a high quality therapy service that is evidence-based and centered around the needs of the child/ young person and their family. The service provides for children aged 0-18 years of age (up to 19 years in special school settings) and their families within the London Borough of Newham, delivered across a range of pathways and community settings.

The post holder will be responsible and accountable for the day-to-day operational service planning and delivery of equitable therapy services. They will be clinically accountable for the delivery of services and for the operational planning of a safe and effective service.

The post holder will work alongside the Head of Children's Therapies and contribute to overall Directorate strategy/policy to ensure the service delivers its quality, quality improvement, people, and finance and performance objectives. They will support the Head of Children's Therapies in strategic planning and identifying risk.

The post holder will carry out direct clinical contact with children and young people to maintain practice through experience in order to maintain up to date professional knowledge.

Job responsibilities

• To provide operational management and clinical leadership of the Children's Occupational therapy team to ensure delivery of an efficient, high quality and evidence based service to children, young people and families in Newham.
• To provide a high quality, cost effective, evidence based service across the different community settings and stakeholders including home, school and early years settings.
• To ensure a high quality Occupational Therapy service is realised through the implementation of the clinical governance agenda, inclusive of staff supervision, appraisal, clinical audit, standard setting, and participation in research and quality improvement projects.
• To be responsible for the clinical performance of the service including meeting commissioning KPIs Governance standards as well as RCOT, HCPC and Trust standards.
• To provide direct line management to relevant team members and overall management of the service where staff are empowered and encouraged to deliver high quality services in a continuous improvement model.
• To establish strong working relationships with other clinical leads within SCYPS to support multidisciplinary working.
• To ensure staff development from a clinical and non-clinical perspective acting as a good role model.
• To ensure that health service delivery reflects and responds to the identified needs of children, young people and their families in Newham by providing effective Occupational Therapy leadership and continually challenging practice, promoting MDT working, leading and supporting innovation and utilising change management to improve care.

Person Specification

Qualifications

• Qualified Occupational Therapist
• Current HCPC registration
• Evidence of post graduate continued professional development
• Leadership/ management training
• Member of RCOT

Experience

• Highly Specialist clinical practitioner level with significant experience in paediatric Occupational therapy
• Experience of delivering Pediatric OT in a community setting
• Experience of delivering OT interventions for a variety of conditions and functional concerns
• Experience of assessing and prescribing a range of specialist equipment
• Experience of managing a pathway or service area
• Experience of delivering service improvement projects/ QI
• Experience of audit, quality assurance and clinical governance
• Experience of working in an MDT
• Experience of providing supervision
• Experience of dealing with performance and competency issues
• Experience of recruitment of staff
• Experience of managing budgets

Knowledge and Skills

• Ability to build and develop teams and maintain constructive working relationships
• Ability to work as an autonomous practitioner to deliver patient care including assessment, goal setting and developing client centered programmes
• Ability to write EHC advice
• Ability to communicate effectively and change communication style according to the audience
• Good organizational skills and ability to prioritize and meet deadlines
• Analytical problem solving approach
• IT literate
• Knowledge of agencies/ organizations which can be used for the benefit of service users
• Knowledge of National health, Government, NICE guidance and Occupational therapy agendas and policies as they relate to the care of infants, children, young people and delivery of services.
• Ability to interpret health policies to inform local service delivery
• Knowledge of SEND legislation and processes
• Knowledge of clinical governance and improvement methodologies
• Able to coach others to improve practice
• Working knowledge of safeguarding

Other

• Good interpersonal skills
• Highly motivated
• Able to work in stressful situations
• Able to manage effectively frequent exposure to distressing/ highly emotional circumstances
• Physically able to travel around the Borough to schools and other settings
• Team player

Disclosure and Barring Service Check

This post is 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.