Consultant in Old Age Liaison Psychiatry

Job summary

An exciting opportunity has arisen for a Consultant Psychiatrist to join the Old Age Liaison Psychiatry service at Southampton General Hospital. This is a replacement post within a well-established, PLAN-accredited liaison psychiatry service covering the acute hospital.

The post-holder will be employed by Hampshire & Isle of Wight Healthcare NHS Foundation Trust, with an honorary contract at University Hospitals Southampton NHS Foundation Trust.The role provides consultant leadership and clinical expertise to the Old Age Liaison Psychiatry MDT, supporting older adults, people with dementia of any age, and patients whose needs are best met by Older Person's Mental Health services.

The post includes participation in the Southampton OPMH on-call rota, Responsible Clinician duties supported by an established Mental Health Act administration service, and 1.5 SPA sessions. There are opportunities to develop a special interest aligned with acute hospital services.

Teaching and education are strongly embedded in the service, with active involvement in undergraduate and postgraduate medical education and close links with the University of Southampton.

You will join a supportive and experienced liaison psychiatry team and work closely with a wide range of established mental health and acute trust services within a large teaching hospital environment.

Main duties of the job

Consultants will use their skills and expertise to achieve the best care for service users, with a focus on providing supervision and oversight of the team and the assessment and management of complexity and severity. This includes:

Focusing on the management of service users presenting with the greatest complexity and severity will necessitate the consultant working with a small case load in order to be able to respond in a flexible and timely way to the needs of the most unwell and or most urgent.

Managing complex information.

Ensuring appropriate and effective engagement with carers and ward teams.

Management of risk.

Providing Responsible Clinician care for those detained under the Mental Health Act

Consultants will work effectively as a member of the leadership team in collaboration with other clinical and managerial leaders.

To undertake timely administrative duties associated with the care of patients.

To record clinical activity accurately and comprehensively.

To participate in service and business planning activity for the service.

To participate in annual appraisal for consultants.

Job responsibilities

Hampshire and Isle of Wight Healthcare NHS Foundation Trust provides joined-up mental and physical healthcare for around two million people across our communities. With over 13,000 staff working in the community and local hospitals, we deliver care at every stage of life, helping people live their best and healthiest lives.

Our mental health services include community-based support and early intervention in psychosis (EIP) for both adults and young people, alongside a network of specialist inpatient wards covering forensic, learning disability, eating disorder and older person's care.

We deliver extensive physical health services too, from urgent community response teams helping frail and older patients remain safely at home, to hospitals at home teams providing acute-level care in familiar surroundings. Our neurological services offer rehabilitation and treatment for conditions including Multiple Sclerosis, Parkinson's Disease, Motor Neurone Disease, Head Injury, Cerebral Palsy and Stroke. Across Hampshire, our community hospitals provide inpatient rehabilitation as a step down from acute care, and our dedicated teams also staff Treetops Sexual Assault Referral Centre in Portsmouth, offering expert, compassionate support.

Everything we do is underpinned by our CARE values of compassion, accountability, respect and excellence