Senior Specialist Grade Psychiatrist HMP Exeter

Job overview

Part of the Devon Cluster, HMP Exeter is a Category B local and resettlement men's prison. The current capacity is 321 due to wing refurbishment, at full capacity this is approximately 550. The prison has a high turnover each month, receiving between 1-20 receptions 6 days per week. There can be  around 50 new referrals each week for the Mental Health Team The prison was inspected by HMIP/CQC in November 2022, at that time it was placed under an Urgent Notification. However, since that time and following a progress inspection in November 2023 the healthcare service was noted to have made significant improvements.

The post holder will be Section 12 registered and appointed to a part-time, 8 PA role, providing cover for HMP Exeter  mental health services and supporting the full Oxleas service through Senior leadership on site. Following appointment there will be a meeting at no later than three months with the Clinical Director and Service Manager to review and revise the job plan and objectives of the post holder and agree the formal job plan. The job plan will be reviewed at least annually thereafter.

The overall split of the programmed activities is 5.5 to be devoted to direct clinical care and 2.5 to Supporting Professional Activities.

There are no out of hours on-call associated with this post.

To support the recruitment campaign, there is potential to employ a suitable candidate to this post with full time hours. To be discussed following interview.

Main duties of the job

Clinical work - HMP Exeter

• assessing prisoners in the  healthcare clinics and as required in the segregation unit and wing cells.
• liaising with services outside the prison to arrange CPAs, aftercare plans or transfers to hospital
• any other care which could reasonably be expected of a senior psychiatrist working within a prison environment
• providing out-patient clinics as required
• quality improvement initiatives, to be agreed with multidisciplinary colleagues and the service managers.

Detailed job description and main responsibilities

Workload at HMP Exeter

The mental health team holds a caseload and within this caseload, a number of patients would be subject to CPA management.  All referrals are triaged by the mental health team collectively  On occasion, assessments are requested as an emergency from the wings or segregation unit. This is variable but on average couple of times a week. Whilst there is flexibility in allocation of individual responsibilities, the overarching model is one of close integrated working within the  mental health  team- and further to this close and positive relationships with other healthcare and priosn colleagues are able to support patients effectively.

This post-holder will have his or her base at HMP Exeter for the allocated PAs, where the mental health services comprise a full multidisciplinary team, including mental health practitioners, a Support Time and Recovery worker, Psychologists and Assistants, a Psychotherapist/Systemic practitioner all supported by an Admin Assistant and a Custodial Flow Co-ordinator, again all of whom work closely with all other healthcare colleagues. .