Clinical Lead

Job overview

An exciting opportunity has opened for a Clinical Lead practitioner to join our Mental Health Urgent Assessment Centre. (MHUAC)

The successful candidate will be enthusiastic about the urgent treatment pathway and the MHUAC and be able to demonstrate excellent clinical leadership in a fast-paced environment.

The Mental Health Urgent Assessment Centre within Lincolnshire Partnership Foundation Trust has been designed using a service delivery model to offer a safe and therapeutic environment for patients experiencing mental health crisis. The aim is to reduce whole system pressures by directing patients away from ED and enabling onward referral and liaison with other co-located Mental Health Services.

The Mental Health Urgent Assessment Centre offers timely, high-quality clinical assessments for those suffering from a mental health crisis. The service aims to reduce A&E attendance for those who have no medical need to attend and provide patients with the right intervention at the right time to help prevent hospital admission and help keep people well in the community.

The Mental Health Assessment Centre is based at the Peter Hodgkinson Centre and consists of a waiting room, three assessment rooms, and an office space. MHUAC is co-located next to the Psychiatric Clinical Decisions Unit and the Section 136 Suite. The staff team works across all three services, which helps to provide continuity of care throughout the pathway.

Main duties of the job

To provide the overall clinical and managerial leadership of the Nursing and clinical team in the MHUAC.

This position is both Clinical and Managerial with a team composition made up of Nursing, Allied Healthcare Professionals, Psychological therapy professionals, Administrative and Medical representation. As clinical lead you will provide the expert knowledge within areas acute care mental health and support the clinical team to develop their roles and the provision of care within Acute mental health.

Work jointly with the Team Coordinator in managing the service including line management of staff, reporting for contract and auditing of service provision.

Be accountable for the leadership and management of the delivery of the clinical care of service users.

Provide leadership and work in partnership with service users, their carers and colleagues in the urgent care setting.

Provide effective line management and clinical supervision jointly with the Team Coordinator of the clinical team in urgent care pathway setting.

Detailed job description and main responsibilities

To manage and lead the team in the clinical delivery care.

The hours would be management days and clinical shifts.

Demonstrate the ability to effectively influence the clinical dimensions of service development.

Use specialist knowledge to deal effectively with newly encountered clinical situations.

Work with individuals to assess their mental health, recognise mental illness and identify their related needs and circumstances; and enable them to understand, manage and where appropriate change their behaviour by linking them with evidence based treatment pathways.

Plan, implement, review, improve interventions and treatment pathways to meet people’s identified needs and manage their inherent risk with comprehensive Clinical Risk Formulation and care planning

To assess carers’ and families needs and develop, implement and review programmes of support for carers and families.

Protect people from abuse, neglect and harm.

To work collaboratively and promote effective working relationships with members of the multi-disciplinary team and community teams, ensuring appropriate clinical decision-making, with other professionals and agencies.

To support transitions of young people to adult services.

To adhere to N.M.C. or other professional codes of conduct and ethics, plus associated legislation.

To develop clinical practice having due regard tor the NICE Guidelines in respect of treatment for mental health disorders in children and adolescents.

To provide support to the Team Coordinator for writing and providing evidence and reports for the NHS England contract.

To provide line management and where requested, clinical supervision to the clinical team and administrators.

Provide high standards of evidence based, clinical care in one’s own practice and leadership in the team’s practice.

Work flexibly according to service needs.

Contribute to, and where requested, lead on the development of service protocols.

Instigate and implement service developments, improvements and action plans (as required).

Key involvement in service development, participating in management discussions and decision making through attendance at management meetings.

Ensuring the implementation of up to date agreed care plans, risk assessments and reviews are in place for all service users in line with local and national guidance/ legislation.

Protect people from abuse, neglect and harm.

Develop and deliver information to enhance professional awareness of issues related to the emotional, behavioural and mental needs of service users.

To support the Team Coordinator in monitoring performance and activity targets and ensure these are met and reporting exceptions.

Promote equality and Diversity and a supportive access/ admission to in-patient care.

Promote and support the participation of patients/service users and their carers’ in developing the in-patient service, information and guidelines through effective communication, consultation and to promote opportunities for service users and their families to contribute at all levels.

Support Team Coordinator to develop systems to monitor and review the service (against national and local standards as appropriate) and use findings as a means of initiating and implementing change and ongoing improvement in services content, quality and delivery.

Attend and contribute (as appropriate) relevant regional and national contributing professional development activities to maintain up-to-date skills and knowledge in meeting the needs of the service.

Delegate aspects of the role to other members of the team, whilst maintaining overall responsibility for team delivery.

Ensure dissemination of relevant information (internal or external as appropriate) to the team.

Support the Team Coordinator to undertake regular review of the team’s performance and compliance to national and local standards e.g. through audit

To support the Team Coordinator to ensure that all staff within their team (including themselves) receives managerial and clinical supervision, appraisal and mandatory training in line with LPFT’s policies