Consultant Psychiatrist HMP Rochester, Cookham Wood, and Maidstone

Job overview

Consultant General Adult Psychiatrist based at Kent Prisons In-Reach Teams. The post holder will provide Consultant leadership for the In-Reach teams at HMP Rochester with 4PAs DCC, HMP Cookham Wood 2PAs DCC and HMP Maidstone 2PAs DCC.

The post holder will be eligible for inclusion in the Specialist Register in Forensic Psychiatry or General Adult Psychiatry.

In addition, the post holder would be expected to contribute to an aspect of quality assurance. 2 SPAs will be allocated in the job plan for undertaking activities that support the professional role such as teaching, training, clinical management, clinical governance, service development, research, and other relevant activities.

Main duties of the job

The post includes an interesting and varied range of clinical responsibilities for prisoners with a wide range of clinical conditions, including acute and chronic mental illness, personality disorder and ADHD. The in-reach team holds a caseload and within this caseload, number of patients would be subject to CPA management. Patients are generally seen within the outpatient clinics at each site, although at times patients may need to be seen on the wing in an emergency. All referrals are triaged by the In-Reach Team. At HMP Rochester the psychiatrist completes a segregation round once a week.. Whilst there is flexibility in allocation of individual responsibilities, the overarching model is one of integrated working across the mental health multidisciplinary teams.

The post holder would be provided with training in Rio and System One, which is used by healthcare in prison within the Trust.

Detailed job description and main responsibilities

Clinical work – HMP Rochester, HMP Cookham Wood and HMP Maidstone

• assessing prisoners in outpatient clinics, on the wing and in the segregation unit.
• liaising with services outside the prison to arrange CPAs, aftercare plans or transfers to hospital
• any other care which could reasonably be expected of a consultant acting in an in-reach capacity in a prison
• quality improvement initiatives, to be agreed with multidisciplinary colleagues and the service managers.
• The post holder will work closely with the Service Manager and consultant colleagues in the prisons, Associate Clinical Director and the Clinical Director for the Forensics and Prisons Directorate to develop a model for the use of medical resources that meets service needs appropriately and supports a job plan that is professionally balanced.
• There is protected time for administrative work, as well as protected time to deal with mental health act related work.
• It is expected that the post holder will liaise with other agencies, as may be appropriate, especially with regard to continuity of patient care.