Senior Mental Health Practitioner - First Point of Contact Centre

Senior Mental Health Practitioner - First Point of Contact Centre

Gloucestershire Health and Care NHS Foundation Trust

Are you someone who thrives in a fast-paced environment? Do you have a passion for being the first point of contact for those in need of mental health support when they need us the most? Can you provide a voice of reassurance and support? If so, we are looking for individuals like you to make a real difference!

Using your experience, you will be the duty clinician and supervisor to a shift that consists of Band 6 Senior Mental Health Practitioners, Band 5 Mental Health Practitioners, Band 3 Call Handlers, and students, supervising, mentoring, and coaching them to develop their skills and playing a key role in the development of the service.

Our First Point of Contact Centre (FPCC) is a priority one urgent response telephone service launched in 2019. Since then it has consistently demonstrated itself to be an integral part of our mental health services; we've improved access to mental health services for individuals who need it, whilst reducing demands on care and treatment delivery services. We are continuing to evolve and build our team and the support we offer as part of the development of the National Mental Health 111 response model, which involves 24/7 working, including night shifts.

Main duties of the job

Forget caseloads and case management. In the FPCC, your skills and expertise will be in triaging patients at the point of contact, providing mental health support, and identifying what service will best meet their needs moving forward. The spectrum of mental health needs varies significantly; you will have the ability to offer advice, guidance, and support for mental health issues, with a routine, urgent, or crisis response, and ways this can be managed and improved. Equally, you'll have the ability to respond to urgent referrals with more acute needs and higher risks in the community.

Handling a wide range of calls and thriving amid the challenges this presents requires an outstanding amount of resilience and emotional strength as you will be supporting unwell and upset patients at their time of need. Your support will make a difference in lives and requires people who can be there for those that need it, sometimes in the face of adversity and trauma.

We're currently recruiting for a variety of shift patterns including:

Day Shifts -

• 7am to 8pm
• 9am to 10pm
• 7am to 3pm
• 2pm to 10pm

Night shifts -

• 21:30hrs - 07:30hrs

Flexible working options can be considered.

About us

We have in excess of 5000 staff working over 50 sites, providing a diverse range of services. We strive to support an organisational culture that is welcoming, builds and celebrates inclusivity and diversity, and provides a sense of belonging and trust.

The annual NHS Staff Survey gives our people the opportunity to tell us about their experience working at the Trust. For the 2023 survey, just over 2800 colleagues gave us their views (58.5%). It was great to see from the results that colleagues are saying that:

• 89.7% believe they are making a positive difference to patients/service users;
• 73.3% would recommend the organisation as a place to work;
• 82.4% agree that care of patients and service users is the organisation's priority;
• 76.7% would be happy with the standard of care for a friend or relative.

Our results put us as 5th nationally as a Community, Mental Health and Learning Disabilities NHS Employer of Choice and 1st equal amongst all NHS Provider Trusts in the South West. However, we know we have more to do and will continue to drive forward our commitment to making GHC a Great Place to Work.

Job responsibilities

You will be part of the team that provides the first stage in the Trust's care navigation system, receiving requests using contact methods, including letters, e-mail, and telephone.

We provide a central resource for referrers and Trust staff to ensure the effective receipt and subsequent processing of referrals into our services. We further provide effective signposting to services external to the Trust.

We accept routine, urgent, and crisis referrals, each having a specific pathway to follow.

We provide an effective first point of contact, a link with primary and secondary services, partner agencies, and organisations outside of the trust.

The service focus is to ensure callers or requests are directed to the appropriate person/resource in the Trust in the most effective manner. Where the request is for advice or a specialist opinion, the centre staff will link the request to either internal or external sources in a timely manner. The intention will be to leave the person making the request feeling valued and satisfied with the outcome before ending the contact. Where an immediate response for advice/specialist opinion is not available, staff will work to an agreed response time, which will be shared with the person making the request.

You will have support from Senior Health Practitioners (Band 6) and the Operational Manager to help your development, and you'll be able to share your knowledge and experience with our Call Handlers (Band 3) and Mental Health Practitioners (Band 5).

• The post holder will be part of the Gloucestershire Health and Care NHS Foundation Trust First Point of Contact Centre (FPCC) and will manage and triage mental health referrals coming into the Trust.
• The service is a professional referral service accepting telephone, letter, or e-mail referrals from patients, carers, GPs, Health Care Professionals within mental health working, police, ambulance staff, and some external agencies; this list is not exhaustive.
• The practitioners within the team are responsible for initial screening, triaging, and the allocation of referrals to the appropriate service within the Trust or signposting to a relevant external service.
• The post holder will be responsible for triaging referrals, routine and urgent made to the Trust and directing them to the most appropriate service.
• The post holder will be involved in the triaging of crisis referrals under the supervision of senior colleagues.

Full qualifications, training & experience requirements for the role are underlined in the Job Description/Person Specification.

Please refer to the Additional Information attachment before submitting your application.

Person Specification

Qualifications

• Registered Mental Health Practitioner status or Registered Practitioner with significant mental health experience (nursing, allied health, psychological and social care professionals) registered with a governing body, for example, the NMC.

Length and Nature of Experience

• Demonstrable and significant post-qualification experience in mental health or related areas.
• Sound experience of first-line assessments, including assessment of risk.
• Proven skills in multi-disciplinary working, with experience of communicating across teams, stat and non-stat agencies, and GPs.

Professional/Managerial/Specialist Knowledge

• Sound understanding of the requirements of primary care and secondary care.
• A sound understanding of the Mental Health Act and other associated legislation.
• Experience of using psychological treatments e.g. CBT/Anxiety management.
• A good understanding of other community/voluntary facilities that may be of help to people with a mental health problem.

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.

Gloucestershire Health and Care NHS Foundation Trust

Address

First Point of Contact Centre, Waterwells