Community Consultant Old Age Psychiatrist

Job overview

As a Consultant Old Age Psychiatrist working for Mersey Care NHS Foundation Trust you will be responsible for ensuring that our service users’ needs are met through the delivery of high quality care.

As a leader of the older adults outpatient multi-disciplinary team at Hartley Hospital, you will work in a modern mental health facility for older persons, providing clinical care to service users who have been referred for specialist cognitive assessment as an outpatient and for assessment and management of functional mental disorders. You will work closely with a wide range of clinical and professional disciplines in order to deliver holistic care by completing assessments of new referrals to the team, making formulations and managing their treatment in order to optimise the quality of life of the service users under your caseload.

Main duties of the job

The post holder will be the Responsible Clinician for patients in their caseload within the older adults Community Mental Health Team. There are allocated GP surgeries for each caseload within the service and these are allocated to ensure equity in terms of number of referrals. In line with New Ways of Working, the post holder will provide a consultative, supervisory and supportive role to the multidisciplinary team’s work.

They will take an active part in the clinical work of the team and a lead role in the development of the service. The post holder will be expected to provide leadership to the Team whose role is to provide assessment, management and support to older adults with organic and functional mental disorders. Practitioners within the team will support access to services in a timely manner, as well as ensure arrangements are in place to enhance smooth pathways between primary care and secondary services.

The post holder will be enabled to work in a consultative manner, being accessible to team members, GP and primary care staff, patients and carers, for the provision of expert advice and interventions in a timely manner. The post holder will operate within multi-disciplinary integrated and co-located teams, which including Health staff and Social services staff. The post holder will be expected to be part of the allocation procedure within the team and be responsive and flexible to the needs of the team.

Detailed job description and main responsibilities

The model of care is broadly as below:

- New referrals to the team (if accepted) are offered a new patient assessment with an ANP or medic. A CT head may be requested following this assessment if one has not already been requested by the GP.

- A follow up appointment will then be planned for the purpose of confirming the diagnosis, if appropriate, and once any pending CT scan is completed

- If suitable for treatment then this will be commenced by the team and the patient is monitored by the titration team nurses who will review the response to any medication changes and, once stable, a further review is completed at 6 months. Subsequently a shared care request is sent to the GP.

- Once a shared care agreement is in place then the patient is reviewed by an assistant practitioner every 6-12 months

- If a patient is in a care home then ongoing follow up would be completed by the care home liaison team for 6-12 month review

In the case of more complex memory referrals with higher level of risk or unsettled presentations then the process would be the same as above but the patient would be allocated a CPN. The CPN would then complete the follow up reviews for titration of memory medications and regular outpatient clinic appointment reviews with a medic would be offered.

For functional referrals, patients tend to be seen by medics and then followed up via outpatient clinic for as long as treatment and monitoring is required. Patients may also be allocated a CPN and can be discharged back to primary care if remaining settled on maintenance treatment.

Post diagnostic support is currently commissioned to be provided locally by the Alzheimer’s Society.

The post holder would be expected to work on Rio which is the Trust’s electronic health record system, training for this will be provided on induction. The post holder would be required to record clinical activity accurately and comprehensively in a timely fashion. The post holder would undertake an annual appraisal, CPD and maintain professional registration with General Medical Council and abide by its professional codes of conduct. It is essential that the post holder has Mental Health Act Section 12(2) status which is integral to having Approved Clinician status. The post holder would participate in annual job plan review with the Clinical Director taking into account servicer configuration and delivery associated with modernisation. The post holder would work with local colleagues and managers ensuring efficient running of the services and also comply with the Trust’s agreed policies, procedures, standing orders and financial instructions.

Please see job description for further details.

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.