Occupational Therapy Assistant Practitioner Norwich, England
Job description
Job overview
The Older Age, Functional Mental Health Inpatient wards (Sandringham Ward and Blickling Ward) based at the Julian hospital are seeking 2 dedicated Occupational Therapy Assistant Practitioners to join their teams on a permanent basis.
As an Occupational Therapy Assistant Practitioner within our teams, you will provide a crucial contribution to the provision of high quality care through the older age functional psychiatric pathway.
Within this role you will be working alongside a registered Occupational Therapist to support the assessment and discharge processes of service users on the ward. Your work will mostly be focused on promoting and maintaining independence with ADL's on the ward and in the community setting. You will work closely with service users and their families at all stages of the Occupational Therapy Process and will be expected to work collaboratively with the wider MDT to ensure patient needs are accurately communicated with all professionals.
You will support patients in working towards their personal goals as part of their Recovery Journey. You will be expected to have excellent communication skills, both verbal and written. Within this role you will be instructing and guiding service users during therapeutic interventions. To enable you to provide high quality care you will build professional therapeutic relationships with service users and communicate in a way that is respectful of their views, autonomy and culture.
Main duties of the job
We are looking for individuals who will approach the role with enthusiasm and dedication to promote independence with our service users.
You will work with service users at all stages of the Occupational Therapy process, undertaking tasks and suitable assessments as part of the Occupational Therapy process. You will be required to work autonomously, managing your own workload and be an active, integrated member of the Multi-Disciplinary team, including representing the Occupational Therapy team in meetings when required.
You will facilitate both 1:1 and group therapeutic interventions to support service users on their recovery journey. You will work within the ward environment and in community settings, it is therefore essential that you are able to drive and willing to use ward pool cars to facilitate community work. As part of the OT team, you will advocate for the potential of meaningful occupation as a treatment approach; ensuring that clinical practice is person centred as far as possible. Where suitable you will be involved in the development and maintenance of Recovery Plans.
You will have a good understanding of the principles of the Recovery approach, and will be confident to liaise with and refer service users to external agencies where required.
Working for our organisation
Here at NSFT we pride ourselves on being a welcoming, talented, friendly and supportive team who enjoy sharing experiences and learning from each other. In addition to ongoing training and development opportunities, we are committed to providing an environment in which you can thrive.
Benefits included with this role are:
- NHS pension
- a comprehensive in house & external training programmes
- career progression
- starting annual leave of 27 days per annum increasing to 33 days pa based on length of service (plus paid bank holidays)
- staff physio service
- gym membership
- NHS discounts and many more.
Why work for us? We have challenges as a Trust, but we have ambitious aspirations, are pushing ahead with exciting transformation work and we need dedicated individuals to support us on our journey. This ambition to transform services is recognised at the Julian hospital, and development of these roles is a new initiative within our teams as we understand the vital importance of therapy input in the recovery process for our service users.
Why Norfolk and Suffolk? The people here are warm and welcoming, you'll never be far from the beautiful coastline or Broads National Park. We're an hour and a half away from London and have an international airport in Norwich too. Our villages, towns and cities are packed full of history, independent cafes, shops and theatres. We have excellent shopping, eating out, top ranking schooling and affordable house prices too.
Detailed job description and main responsibilities
Interview dates are yet to be set; you will be contacted via email and invited to book a time. These emails may go to your SPAM, so please keep checking all your emails if applying.
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Person specification
Qualifications
Essential criteria
- Foundation Degree in Health and Social Care/mental health, or relevant equivalent or higher (or working towards qualification, with expected completion within next 6 months)
Desirable criteria
- Care certificate qualification
Experience
Essential criteria
- Experience of working within a care setting.
- Ability to work both independently and under supervision
Desirable criteria
- Experience of working within a mental health setting
- Experience of working with individuals above the age of 70
Skills
Essential criteria
- Ability to work unsupervised in clinical/ community settings
- Reasonable confidence and competence in using IT systems (e.g. Outlook, Word, clinical or other record systems) relevant to the role
- Working within groups
- Good communication skills (written and verbal).
- Good Interpersonal skills
Desirable criteria
- Experience in offering a psychological approach to care and recovery, for example – mindfulness, relaxation, grounding techniques, etc
- Assessment of service users independence with ADL’s
- Documentation of ADL assessment, using activity analysis framework
- Writing Recovery Plans and updating Risk assessments
Knowledge
Essential criteria
- An understanding of Occupational Therapy and the importance of meaningful occupations.
- Health and safety risk awareness
Desirable criteria
- Understanding of the SafeWards Model for inpatient care.
- Good understanding of Mental Health Act and its implications on service users.
Other
Essential criteria
- Ability to undertake and maintain annual, PMVA training (Personal Safety for community roles and full PMVA training for inpatient roles) .
- Ability to travel independently and drive ward pool car
Employer certification / accreditation badges
Applicant requirements
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.
