Band 7 OT Emergency Department

Job overview

Queen Elizabeth Hospital is committed to high-quality patient care and staff development. We are currently seeking a passionate, dynamic Band 7 Occupational Therapist to join our newly redeveloped Emergency department team.

The Emergency department at QEH is a fast-paced, dynamic department where you will play a key role in providing holistic assessments and interventions for a diverse range of patients. You’ll collaborate with consultants, nurses, physiotherapists, and other healthcare professionals to ensure optimal outcomes for patients and support hospital flow.

As a Band 7 Occupational Therapist, you will be responsible for delivering patient-centered therapy and ensuring safe, effective discharge planning. The role involves managing complex caseloads, adopting coaching and mentoring approaches with junior staff, and contributing to service development and quality improvements.

We need an innovative team player to work alongside the service lead and peers, developing this newly established service and guiding the team in its growth. You will also oversee supervision, training, and development for the team, attend clinical governance meetings, and contribute to departmental and Trust improvements.

Learning and personal development are encouraged, with a well-established appraisal system and funding for relevant external and internal courses.

Main duties of the job

• Clinical Expertise: Provide expert assessment and treatment for patients presenting with acute medical , trauma related, and complex functional needs in the ED. This included rapid functional assessment for patients with conditions such as falls, delirium, frailty syndromes, cognitive impairments, safeguarding concerns and functional decline. Discharge Planning: Formulate and implement timely, patient-centred discharge plans in a high-pressure ED setting. Work closely with patients, carers, and the multidisciplinary team to ensure safe discharge home or onward referral, helping to prevent unnecessary admissions and support effective hospital flow. Supervision & Mentorship: Provide clinical supervision, mentoring, and support for staff working in the emergency department and SDEC. Promote reflective practice and ongoing development in a rapidly evolving clinical environment. Service Improvement: Actively contribute to the development and refinement of the emergency department occupational therapy service. Participate in quality improvement initiatives, governance activities, and service evaluations to ensure high standards of care and innovative practice.
• Clinical Expertise: Provide expert assessment and treatment for patients presenting with acute medical , trauma related, and complex functional needs in the ED. This included rapid functional assessment for patients with conditions such as falls, delirium, frailty syndromes, cognitive impairments, safeguarding concerns and functional decline.
• Discharge Planning: Formulate and implement timely, patient-centred discharge plans in a high-pressure ED setting. Work closely with patients, carers, and the multidisciplinary team to ensure safe discharge home or onward referral, helping to prevent unnecessary admissions and support effective hospital flow.

Detailed job description and main responsibilities

The Occupational Therapy Team Lead provides professional and clinical leadership to Occupational Therapy staff in the Medical Team based at the QEH site.

The post holder supervises the day to day running of the medical Occupational Therapy team and is line managed by the Occupational Therapy Site Lead at QEH. To achieve this, the post holder works in close collaboration with the OT Site Lead QEH, and the other Band 7 Occupational Therapy Team Leads.

The Occupational Therapy Team Lead is a highly experienced clinician in medicine particularly neurology who independently manages a significant and highly specialised clinical caseload.

In conjunction with the OT Site Lead, the post holder coordinates a rolling programme of education, clinical evaluation, audit and research within the pathway team at QEH.

As part of the senior clinical Occupational Therapy team on the QEH site, the post holder will deputise for the Occupational Therapy Site Lead QEH as required.

The post is based on the Queen Elizabeth site but may at times be asked to work on other sites in order to maintain service levels

7-day working for Therapies is in place within the Trust and the postholder is required to undertake a different working pattern, including weekends, in the future.

KEY RELATIONSHIPS

INTERNAL INCLUDE: Therapy Managers and Therapy leads, own Teams, referring clinicians, MDTs, on ward, therapy administrative team, HR, other Trust Committees and own clinical teams

EXTERNAL INCLUDE: GPs, Community Services, Social services, Local authorities, AHP managers and leads, Voluntary services, College of Occupational Therapists, Health professions council, DoH Networks and Policy Groups, Higher Education Institutes, Colleges and Schools, NHSE.

DUTIES AND RESPONSIBILITIES

Clinical

• To undertake all aspects of clinical duties and to carry a significant caseload of patients as an autonomous practitioner, including those with highly complex presentations
• To work at an advanced level and to be professionally and legally accountable for a highly-specialised patient caseload and to decide priorities for own work area, balancing other patient related and professional demands
• To be professionally and legally responsible and accountable for all aspects of own work, and of the pathway teams’ work. This will include the management of clinical risk, clinical governance, knowledge of indications and precautions of chosen techniques in line with National and Trust clinical guidelines and protocols where they exist.
• To assess patients’ capacity, gain valid informed consent to treatment and where such capacity is lacking/absent to work within a legal framework in the management of the patient
• To undertake the comprehensive assessment and accurate diagnosis of patients, including those with an extremely complex presentation, using investigative, palpatory, analytical and clinical reasoning skills
• As appropriate to the job role, to request diagnostic procedures that will inform clinical decision making

Please read attached Job description for full details

All clinical staff are accountable and responsible for their own clinical competence and should limit their actions to those for which they are deemed competent in line with guidance from their professional bodies.

Applicant requirements

You must have appropriate UK professional registration.

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.