Clinical Driving Advisor

Job overview

South East DriveAbility (SED) is a service provided by Kent Community Health NHS Foundation Trust.  The service has a unique business model and is supported by an annual grant from the Department of Transport (DfT) and income generated by referrals from GPs, Allied Health Professionals, Motability, DVLA, Kent Police and private clients.

SED is led by a Head of Service/Consultant Practitioner.  Working from the main office at Aylesford, and reporting to the Head of Service/ Consultant Practitioner, the post holder will provide high quality occupational therapy input into the driving advice and assessment  service to clients referred by the Driver Vehicle & Licensing Agency, Motability, Kent Police, Rehabilitation Companies, Access to Work, Public Carriage Office, Health Professionals and self-referring clients.  The assessment process ascertains an individual’s driving ability,  vehicle control and vehicle adaptation requirements.

Please note, this vacancy does not meet the criteria for skilled worker sponsorship and therefore, we are unable to accept applications from candidates that cannot provide documentary evidence of right to work in the United Kingdom.

Main duties of the job

SED consists of full/part time clinical professions (Occupational Therapists), driving assessors, admin staff and vehicle maintenance staff and operates between the hours of 8:30am to 16:30pm Monday to Friday. with a requirement to work out of core hours to provide cover to outreach services on a regular basis. Overtime will be paid by the KCHFT  Bank system.

SED provides specialist fitness to drive assessments with full accreditation from its governing body, Driving Mobility (DM); it is fully recognised by the Driving Vehicle Licensing Authority (DVLA) and Motability.

Staffed by a Head of Service/Consultant Practitioner, 5 Occupational Therapists, 1 Specialist Driving Assessor, 9 Driving Assessors, 1 Business Manager and 3 Administration Staff, SED is authorised to provide assessment services to clients residing in Kent & Medway, East and West Sussex, west Surrey, south east London and south east Essex from its main office at Aylesford plus 5 outreach centres located across the region.

The postholder will proactively work with a driving assessor in a team setting and, on a pre-arranged basis, will be expected to travel to any Outreach Centres run by SED in the centre’s vehicles (either manual or automatic transmission). This could also involve extended working hours on this day.  The postholder will be expected to travel to outreach  centres once weekly, depending upon service needs.

Detailed job description and main responsibilities

As a community Trust, many of our roles require individuals to be able to drive to perform their duties. Where driving is a requirement of the role, you will be asked to confirm that you hold a full UK driving licence or a full driving licence issued by an EU country (not exchanged from a non-EU country) to proceed with your application. We are committed to supporting candidates with disabilities into employment. If you are unable to drive due to a disability, please contact the Recruitment Team via [email protected], quoting the vacancy reference number, so we can support you further.

The job description and person specification gives you all the information you need about this role. Please look carefully at the criteria in the person specification and tell us what you have done that shows you meet this in your application. If you need an application form in an alternative format please let our recruitment team know. All information you supply on your application should, to the best of your knowledge, be true and accurate.

Still have questions? The recruiting manager would love to hear from you, their contact details can be found in the job advert.

We can get a lot of applications for some roles so to be in with the best chance of being shortlisted please make sure you apply as soon as possible. A vacancy may close early if there is a lot of interest in the job.

At KCHFT we strongly encourage colleagues in clinical and non-clinical roles who have direct or social contact with patients to be fully vaccinated. In this way we will be doing all we can to ensure your safety and that of your colleagues and the patients we serve.

Find out more about the community difference here.

Good luck! We can’t wait to meet you and welcome you to #teamKCHFT, #cometocommunity.