Highly Specialist Occupational Therapist; LTV and Complex Needs

Job overview

We are looking for an experienced Occupational Therapist with skills in managing children with long term needs including Long Term Ventilation, neurological and complex medical conditions to work within the Acute Integrated Therapy Team.

The post holder will carry a complex caseload of children with complex needs who are under the care of the Long Term Ventilation team, and other specialist teams across Alder Hey. They will work in partnership with parents, carers, education and other service providers to ensure a child centred approach to therapy.

The post holder will work jointly with physiotherapist colleagues to manage this caseload.

We are looking to recruit a Highly Specialist Occupational Therapist, to work as an autonomous clinician using specialist assessment skills to assess, plan, implement and evaluate interventions for patients who have acute and long term conditions.

We are looking for a Occupational Therapist with highly developed analytical & judgment skills to be directly involved in the clinical decision-making process as part of the MDT, using and interpreting the results of diagnostic tests to progress the management of the child’s condition.

To be directly involved in the clinical decision-making process as part of the long term ventilation multidisciplinary team, providing appropriate advice and education to families and colleagues to promote optimal therapy management.

Main duties of the job

Please see job description for further details.

To work as a Highly Specialist Occupational Therapist, responsible for the delivery of assessments and interventions to children with complex needs, both as inpatients and outpatients.

Working with a complex caseload, the successful candidate will use advanced clinical reasoning as part of assessment and treatment delivery. The post holder will be able to lead the specialist assessments and advice on 24-hour postural management, sensory stimulation and early neurodevelopment, based on advanced clinical reasoning skills.

To evaluate demand and service need, working with Therapy Managers to make recommendations for service growth and efficient delivery.

The post holder will work within the LTV team linking closely with other specialities to ensure children receive early interventions to support the immediate and ongoing health care needs.

The post holder will work with a caseload with diverse presentations and complex conditions.

The post holder will work closely with Physiotherapists and will provide leadership for junior Therapists and Therapy assistants, support service development and quality improvement projects.

The post holder may be required to provide input to other areas of the service as required.

Detailed job description and main responsibilities

Please see attached job description and personal specification for further details.

• To be professional and legally responsible and accountable for all aspects of own work including the management of caseload. To ensure a high standard of clinical care (for the patients under your management) to maximise function and independence and support more junior staff to do likewise.
• To demonstrate the ability to carry out specialist occupational therapy assessment and interventions within specialist area of practice. To demonstrate the ability to carry out OT assessment and specialised interventions including manual therapy techniques and therapeutic handling and demonstrate highly developed dexterity, co-ordination and palpatory sensory skills for assessment and manual treatment of patients.
• Provide expert advice to the MDT team regarding neurodevelopmental assessment and treatment of children, including those with complex presentations; encompassing any musculoskeletal or Respiratory presentations that fall under scope of practice based on clinical evidence.
• To hold an independent, complex, and highly specialist caseload, being able to highly demonstrate specialist assessment, diagnostic, treatment, and management plans with goals based on advanced clinical reasoning skills.
• To use advanced clinical assessment and reasoning skills and evidence-based knowledge to assess patients with highly complex conditions. To plan and implement highly individualised therapy programmes to be carried out by the therapist, Assistant, Educational Staff and Carers. To continually monitor, evaluate and modify the programmes to measure progress and ensure effectiveness of intervention for children with changing needs.

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.