Consultant Psychiatrist

Job overview

Main duties of the job

The Consultant will provide medical leadership to St Helier Hospital Liaison Psychiatry Team. The Consultant will work closely with the Team Manager to ensure a safe, efficient and effective service that meets the Trust’s Key Performance Indicators.

While individual clinicians within the team have responsibility for the clinical care they deliver, the consultant shares with the team manager and other team members responsibility for ensuring the care delivered by the team is safe and of a good standard. This includes participating in systems of audit and clinical governance, working to resolve problems on their own initiative, and where necessary drawing any concerns they have been unable to resolve themselves to the attention of the team manager and others.

Detailed job description and main responsibilities

The Liaison Psychiatry Service at St Helier Hospital is a well-established part of the Acute and Urgent Care Service Line within South West London & St George's Mental Health NHS Trust. It is a service for people either admitted to, or being seen as an outpatient at, the St Helier Hospital site including the Emergency Department and the Acute Medical Unit.

Within the broad definitions outlined above, the team provide a range of services. These include:

• A liaison service for patients currently on wards as inpatients;
• Outpatients suffering from a physical illness or disorder but with associated mental health problems or in need of a mental health assessment;
• A consultation/advice service for healthcare professionals on the St Helier Hospital site about the psychiatric and psychological treatment and management of individual patients or more general issues regarding their patient group;
• The assessment and initial psychological treatment of patients presenting with episodes of self harm, primarily in the Emergency Department but also on the wards. This will include the initiation of a risk management plan
• The assessment and treatment of patients presenting with a mental health crisis at the Emergency Department
• Support and advice to carers
• Education and training for acute hospital staff on the assessment, management and referral of patients with mental illness.

Please see attached JDPS for more details