Clinical Specialist in Stroke

Job summary

An exciting opportunity has arisen for expert HCPC registered OT or Physio to work in collaboration with the service operational lead to clinically lead and develop the North Mersey stroke therapy service. The service is nationally recognised as a centre of excellence for stroke care due to its unique Stroke Emergency Assessment centre providing national standard assessment and access to treatment including thrombolysis and thrombectomy due to its co-location with the Walton neuroscience centre.

We are looking for someone with advanced assessment and therapeutic diagnosis skills and able to formulate treatment plans for complex stroke presentations. You will need experience of leading service improvement initiatives and implementing evidenced based practice within a clinical inpatient setting. You will work across the stroke units on the Aintree and Broadgreen hospital sites and provide clinical support and supervision to the acute neruo outlier team at Royal Liverpool hospital.

You will have clinical leadership and supervisory responsibilities for band 7 team leads and work collaboratively with existing therapy leads to support operational management of acute and rehab teams across the stroke pathway (including cross site working).

You should be able to demonstrate excellent communication and organisational skills and work effectively as part of a well-established multi-disciplinary team.

Main duties of the job

You will provide clinical assessment and therapy treatment at an expert level with a knowledge of national standards across all therapy professions. You will support the training and development of experienced band 7 therapists including providing supervision and appraisal.

You will lead on clinical effectiveness across the stroke pathway overseeing research and innovation with a view to maintain evidence-based practice in accordance with national guidelines for stroke rehab in adults. You will be able to analysis clinical performance data and apply complex critical thinking to identify areas for improvement to evolve the service as national guidance changes.

You will have developed effective time management skills to be able to deliver direct clinical care to patients with service development and team supervisory responsibilities. You will oversee the clinical leadership and supervision structures to ensure regular clinical supervision and appraisals across multi-therapy professions.

You will be required to critically review the therapy needs of the stroke patients and develop clinical therapy pathways for optimising patient engagement with rehab, to improve SSNAP performance which will lead to improved long patient outcomes.

You will work in collaboration with the Stroke pathway Therapy lead and teams to review service performance data and identify service priorities to support delivery of North Mersey stroke strategy.

Person Specification

Qualifications

Essential

• Degree – Therapy Profession
• Current registration HCPC
• Educator /Mentorship qualification/ equivalent.

Desirable

• Training qualification in relevant management/leadership development

Experience

Desirable

• Demonstrable experience in the formal management and supervision of staff
• Experience of Human Resource related issues such as recruitment and retention and management of sickness, attendance and special leave

Knowledge

Essential

• Extensive working knowledge of Therapy practice within designated clinical area of practice
• Good understanding of standardised assessment tools and treatment principles
• Awareness of and local involvement in current NHS issues and relevant frameworks/quality indicators
• Demonstrate a good understanding of Risk Assessment and Health & Safety issues

Skills

Essential

• Ability to demonstrate specialist clinical skills accompanied by an extensive and current working knowledge of Therapy practice within the identified specialist field of clinical practice
• Effective communicator at all levels
• Ability to manage own stress and awareness of stress in others and ability to access support as relevant
• High level of ability to work in multidisciplinary and collaborative teams
• Ability to demonstrate tact/diplomacy and empathy within clinical and team settings
• High level of interpersonal skills
• High level of organisational and negotiation skills
• Ability to lead effectively
• Ability to motivate patients/staf
• Ability to demonstrate assertiveness within the clinical/team and service settings
• Ability to delegate appropriately
• Ability to represent the Team and Therapy service and the organisation at Trust initiatives and with external agencies
• Ability to demonstrate a comprehensive understanding of Therapy within specialist field of clinical practice
• Ability to demonstrate clinical reasoning and an holistic problem solving approach
• Ability to manage own time within clinical and non clinical activity and to show effective leadership skills empowering others to use problem solving and decision making skills to initiate evidence based practice within clinical area
• Ability to initiate evidence based practice within clinical area
• Effective teaching and presentation skills, experience of formal teaching and presentation
• Ability to demonstrate and promote reflective practice

Closing Date: 9 August 2026