Community Psychiatric Nurse

Job overview

We are looking to recruit a highly motivated and enthusiastic CPN to continue the excellent work in our well established team based in Elizabeth Newton Building  Springfield Hospital in Tooting , London.

Wandsworth Intervention in Psychosis Service offers intensive support to clients who have experienced a first episode of Psychosis and are between the ages of 18-65 years. Evidence indicates that interventions at this crucial time can have a beneficial impact to the client and family, in many aspects of their lives. Using NICE recommended interventions including CBT approaches, family work and intensive support with an outreach ethos, the service offers a positive and recovery focused approach.

Main duties of the job

The successful candidate will require past experience of working as a community psychiatric nurse in the community and have robust skills in all aspects of this role.

This post is to work autonomously with service users and their families, holding a caseload for approximately 18-20 clients (pro rata). The community psychiatric nurse is responsible for planning, implementing, recording and reviewing a comprehensive package of care in conjunction with the multi-disciplinary Team. We would particularly welcome applicants who have psychosocial interventions training including family interventions but would want to train up all staff in this intervention.

Detailed job description and main responsibilities

Working autonomously within the parameters of the role leading and supporting junior staff and wider care team to implement the delivery of quality nursing care, contributing to the physical, psychological, social, recreational and spiritual care in a recovery-focused way through therapeutic engagement and activities, and taking steps to address any issues that arise.

Leading on and undertaking activities to ensure that the fundamentals of care are met - nutrition, hydration, hygiene, comfort, emotional and social support:

Co-ordinating and evaluating collaborative patient centred care; getting feedback and improving plans with the multi-disciplinary team (MDT).

Providing accurate information about care in an accessible format to patients and their relatives / carers.

Liaising and working positively with members of the multi- disciplinary team and partner organisations.

Administering, and monitoring the side-effects of, medication; monitoring service user compliance.

Safety; safe custody of medicines, sharps, clinical equipment, report all incidents following trust policy.

Leading and supporting/teaching junior staff on risk assessment and risk management that involves making decisions based on knowledge of the research evidence, knowledge of the individual service user and their social context, knowledge of the service user’s own experience and clinical judgment.