Clinical Lead

Mersey Care NHS Foundation Trust celebrates diversity and promotes equal opportunities; we are committed to challenging and eliminating racism and other forms of discrimination and advancing and promoting equality of opportunity in the provision of services and creating an inclusive environment for all employees. We believe that everyone has the right to be treated with dignity and respect.

We take positive action to support disadvantaged groups and also particularly encourage applications from ethnic minorities, disabled and LGBTQIA+ people that are under-represented in our workforce. Furthermore, we welcome applications from reservists and ex-armed forces personnel as we recognise the benefits of the values, skills, training and experience that they bring to their work with us. We encourage all applicants to share their equality information with us.

Job overview

Please note we are employing into 1 x Permanent post and 1 x Fixed-Term post until 31.03.2026.

The First Response Service (FRS) has an exciting opportunity for a clinical lead to join the expanding workforce and evolving service within the Mid-Mersey team based at Hollins Park Hospital.

FRS operates on a 24/7 basis providing immediate intervention for individuals that contact the crisis line, third party referrals including professionals and family, and undertake urgent mental health assessments within a 4-, 24- and 72-hour framework.

As a service, FRS strives to provide urgent response to those in crisis. The role will include a mixture of telephone crisis support & triage as well as Face to Face crisis mental health assessments at base and within the community, working to prevent escalation to emergency services and AED attendance.

This is a demanding and challenging role where, as a successful candidate, you will be required to demonstrate high levels of resilience, excellent problem solving and inter-personal skills as well as the ability to provide sound clinical and peer support to team members.

The team consists of Psychiatrist, Advanced Clinical Practitioners, Social workers, Clinical Leads, Mental health practitioners and Support workers.

The post holder will be expected to work across weekdays, weekends and nights in accordance with the service need.

Main duties of the job

The post holder will provide support for the team from a clinical and leadership perspective (covering a service operating 24 hours a day 7 days a week). They will be responsible for supporting the overall standards which will include assessment of need, risk screening and delivery of care in line with the organisations policy and procedures.

The post holder will work to ensure continuity of care for service users on their journey through the service. The post holder will be multi-skilled and adaptable and be expected to be flexible in terms of delivering care within a variety of settings. They will undertake triage and assessments, providing enhanced risk assessment and care delivery to those presenting in mental health crisis.

The post holder will be a part of and work closely with the Clinical / Operational Leadership Team to ensure effective and safe services. The post holder will ensure effective communication and provide sound clinical supervision to junior staff.

The post holder will provide appropriate education within the team and wider health economy in line with Key Performance Targets and identified need.

The post holder will support the development of a skilled and flexible workforce within the First Response Service, ensuring staff are supported in developing and maintaining appropriate levels of skills.

Working for our organisation

Mersey Care is one of the largest trusts providing physical health and mental health services in the North West, serving more than 1.4 million people across our region and are also commissioned for services that cover the North West, North Wales and the Midlands.

We offer specialist inpatient and community services that support physical and mental health and specialist inpatient mental health, learning disability, addiction and brain injury services. Mersey Care is one of only three trusts in the UK that offer high secure mental health facilities.

At the heart of all we do is our commitment to 'perfect care' - care that is safe, effective, positively experienced, timely, equitable and efficient. We support our staff to do the best job they can and work alongside service users, their families, and carers to design and develop future services together. We're currently delivering a programme of organisational and service transformation to significantly improve the quality of the services we provide and safely reduce cost as we do so.

Flexible working requests will be considered for all roles.

Detailed job description and main responsibilities

1. To coordinate the care of service users; carrying out assessments, evaluation and safety planning for their own clients and engaging in safety huddles with the wider team.
2. To ensure that the service users care plan is developed to meet the assessed need of the individual and that unqualified staff are delivering care as identified in the care plan.
3. To liaise with family members, carers and significant others when completing the assessment and developing a care plan.
4. To undertake and supervise risk assessments and formulation of risk management plan for service users under your care, taking note of the contributions from other members of the team, family members, carers and significant others.
5. To ensure Safeguarding Children and Adults requirements are followed and participate in meetings as appropriate.
6. To support unqualified staff to ensure delivery of a high standard of care to service users.
7. To participate in setting standards for care based on sound evidence-based and research findings.
8. To communicate to other members of the multi-disciplinary team information which has an impact on the service user's care.
9. To use verbal and non-verbal communication skills gained through training or experience to impart sensitive information.
10. To check understanding of information where there are barriers to effective communications.
11. To give and receive accurate up-to-date information regarding service users' care in reviews and multi-disciplinary meetings etc. These reviews may be external to the trust.
12. To have accurate and up-to-date knowledge of the Mental Health Act / Mental Capacity Act and other relevant legislation.
13. To ensure that all relevant information with regards to a service users care and treatment is documented accurately and legibly into the health record. To supervise and monitor the entries made by unqualified staff.
14. To ensure that all incidents or near misses are documented as per trust policy and that any follow up action is taken.
15. To react pro-actively in cases of service user crisis and put in place immediate plans to resolve the situation with supervision and guidance as appropriate.
16. To actively participate in team meetings, development and reflective practice.

PROFESSIONAL DUTIES AND RESPONSIBILITIES

1. To be responsible for maintaining relevant professional registration and PREP requirements.
2. To participate in ongoing learning to maintain and develop practice utilising CPD, self-directed learning, reflective practice, coaching, mentorship, clinical supervision and performance management in the interests and needs of yourself and the service.
3. To provide an effective link between mental health services and primary care, acting in an advisory capacity to professionals in other fields.
4. To develop effective working relationships with other professionals outside of the Trust to enhance the delivery of care to service users.
5. To participate as a supervisor and supervisee in the Divisional performance management / supervision framework.
6. To take responsibility for maintaining and developing own knowledge and skills within own area of work.
7. To attend, as appropriate, courses and conferences, and to feedback and share knowledge, gained from attendance.
8. To be professionally accountable for own actions as a registered practitioner.
9. To act, always, in accordance with trust policies and procedures, ensuring that unqualified staff are adhering to policy and procedure.
10. To undertake mandatory training as identified by the Trust and Division to ensure that all actions are in line with training.
11. To keep up to date with developments in professional practice and make recommendations for change to senior staff, as appropriate.

Person specification

Qualifications

Essential criteria

• Degree or equivalent qualification
• Masters level qualification or equivalent
• Evidence of CPD/Short courses
• Registration with relevant professional body

Desirable criteria

• First line management qualification

VALUES

Essential criteria

• Continuous Improvement
• Accountability
• Respectfulness
• Enthusiasm
• Support
• High professional standards
• Responsive to service users
• Engaging leadership style
• Flexible approach
• Transparency and honesty
• Change oriented

Knowledge/Experience

Essential criteria

• Demonstrable post registration/qualification experience
• Experience of management and clinical leadership
• Experience of working across multiagency frameworks

Skills

Essential criteria

• Evidence of influencing, motivating and negotiating with others to achieve change in relation to care.
• Awareness of current national and local agenda in NHS and Social Care.
• Evidence of being able to communicate complex, sensitive information and advice on healthcare to patients/clients, carers and colleagues
• Understanding how other agencies work
• IT literate
• Awareness of factors that contribute to good health and the importance of promoting these in line with organisational public health policy
• Ability to work under pressure and manage a diverse workload
• Excellent communication, organisational and interpersonal skills
• Ability to understand and analyse complex data
• Risk assessment skills
• Ability to network with multidisciplinary colleagues
• Self-management and motivation skills
• Report writing skills
• Confidence to challenge poor practice and ability to address difficult issues
• Ability to travel to work across boundaries

Desirable criteria

• Research skills

Please ensure you check the email account from which you apply for all correspondence. All information regarding your application will come from apps.trac.jobs not NHS Jobs.

Only those applicants who demonstrate clearly how they meet our person specification will be shortlisted for interview.

As a Disability Confident Employer, we offer a guaranteed interview scheme for applicants who consider themselves to be disabled who meet the minimum (essential) criteria for the role in the person specification. If you would like your application to be considered under the Trust's guaranteed interview scheme you can indicate this in the personal information section of your online application form.

Should you require a reasonable adjustment to our recruitment process please email recruitment@merseycare.nhs.uk to ensure that measures can be put in place to support you.

We reserve the right to close any vacancy earlier than advertised in exceptional circumstances once we have received a high volume of applications.

The Trust expects all post holders who require an enhanced DBS for their role to subscribe to the DBS Update Service. You will be required to enrol for this service for a fee of £16 per year and maintain registration. Trans applicants who require a DBS check and do not want to reveal details of their previous identity can contact the DBS Sensitive Applications Team (01516761452 or email sensitive@dbs.gsi.gov.uk) with their application number once they have completed their DBS application form. The team can prevent any previous identity showing on the DBS Certificate, unless the applicant has a conviction under their previous details in which case this will need to be disclosed.

Flexible working requests will be considered for all roles.

Please be advised that the use of Artificial Intelligence on applications is monitored and if you choose to use this, you must declare this on your application form.