Job Summary
The post holder will work in a targeted way to achieve the best pathway out of hospital, maximizing independence and choice for the individual and working in a solution focused way to ensure that once ready, there are no barriers in place to an effective discharge.
The post holder will work with individuals identified through their attendance and participation at daily whiteboard meetings and weekly Bed Management and Clinically Ready For Discharge (CRFD) meetings. This will provide them with a complete picture of the acute care pathway and barriers to patient flow.
The post holder must be adept at prioritizing the activities that will most rapidly lead to effective discharge and have strong legal literacy to ensure that there are no legal barriers to discharge. This includes expert knowledge of housing legislation, Care Act 2014, No Recourse to Public Funds, Mental Health Act (s117) and the Mental Capacity Act including Court of Protection.
The post holder will sit organizationally within the Inpatient Services and be present on the inpatient wards within a defined geographical area working with an identified caseload to enable effective discharge planning. This post is for Park Royal Centre for mental health, it’s a 9-5 post Monday -Friday and due to the nature of the role it is a fact to face job.
Main duties of the job
The post holder will coordinate the CRFD list for the Borough and attend the weekly CRFD meeting as a matter of routine to update on progress and highlight any potential blocks that they have been unable to resolve.Using strengths based social work practice to manage a specific caseload of individuals who are inpatients and patients on HTT caseload and have potential barriers to discharge identified early on, in their inpatient stay or admission to HTT. Pre-empt and resolve arising barriers to discharge and length of stay.
Ensure that patient care is provided in the most appropriate care setting to ensure effective and efficient treatment and that there is a clear and robust discharge plan. This will involve attendance on wards for specific discussions including White Board meetings, and s117 discharge planning meetings.
The successful applicant may have contact with patients or service users. As an NHS Trust we strongly encourage and support vaccination as this remains the best way to protect yourself, your family, your colleagues and of course patients and service users when working on our healthcare settings.
Person Specification
Education / Qualifications
Essential
- Social Work Qualification
- Current Social work England Registration.
- Evidence of continuing professional development.
- Professional Expertise
Desirable
- Professional supervision qualification
- AMHP/BIA qualification
Experience
Essential
- Mental health social care delivery in a multi-disciplinary statutory setting.
- Working with people presenting in mental health crisis and their families/carers
- Multi-agency working/working across service interfaces
- Experience of applying legislation in practice including Care Act, MCA and s117
- Experience of using strengths based approaches to support individuals to maximise independence and achieve their goals
- Experience of presenting cases to funding panels.
- Experience of working with housing and specialist services
- Experience of working to deadlines
- Experience of safeguarding adults at risk and children
Skills & Abilities
Essential
- Communicating (oral and written) complex/highly technical and clinically sensitive information to clients, their families, carers and other professional colleagues both within and outside the NHS.
- Able to meet the service needs for mobility across the geographical area covered.
- Able to recognise and respect the values of diverse perspectives
- Able to demonstrate commitment to high quality care and service provision
- Demonstrate the ability to liaise effectively with other agencies, both statutory and non statutory
- Able to build and maintain relationships with a diverse group of colleagues, service users and partners to increase understanding
- Demonstrates the ability to empower the team to create solutions
- Ability to prioritise workload and ensure all documentation is current and up-to-date.
Knowledge & Understanding
Essential
- Evidenced based strengths based social work interventions relevant to the service
- Knowledge of key issues relating to developments in adult mental health services at a local and national level
- Knowledge and understanding of funding panel processes
- Possess extensive knowledge of the mental health legislative framework for health and social care
- Expert knowledge of: Mental Health Act, Care Act, Mental Capacity Act including Court of Protection and Homelessness Reduction Act and Housing legislation
Desirable
Other
Essential
- Demonstrable approach to person-centred care delivery
- Values others involved in a patients care, including carers, families, referrers and other teams/colleagues
- Able to act to pre-empt or stop discrimination and social exclusion
- Motivated, reliable and committed to team working.
- Recognise people’s right to privacy and dignity, treating every person with respect
- Willingness to embrace integrated model and new ways of working
- Willingness to be flexible in approach and attitude
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.
Applications from job seekers who require current Skilled worker sponsorship to work in the UK are welcome and will be considered alongside all other applications. For further information visit the UK Visas and Immigration website (Opens in a new tab).
From 6 April 2017, skilled worker applicants, applying for entry clearance into the UK, have had to present a criminal record certificate from each country they have resided continuously or cumulatively for 12 months or more in the past 10 years. Adult dependants (over 18 years old) are also subject to this requirement. Guidance can be found here Criminal records checks for overseas applicants (Opens in a new tab).
Closing Date: 16 May 2025
