Highly Specialist Speech & Language Therapist; Neonatal/Acute

Job overview

The Children’s Integrated Speech and Language Therapy Service for Hackney and the City is a unique collaboration between local health and education agencies. By pooling resources, the service is able to provide high quality, comprehensive service to the children, young people and families within Hackney and The City.

The post holder will join a multi-disciplinary team (AHPs including other SALTs, medical and nursing colleagues) working in the neonatal unit at Homerton Hospital to provide a high-quality SALT service to premature and term babies with feeding difficulties and their families. The postholder will advice on early communication and developmental care in line with the FiCare framework.  The postholder will also be involved in a new initiative providing eating, drinking and swallowing assessments to children in the small general paediatric ward within Homerton hospital. In both the neonatal unit and the paediatric ward, the postholder will work as part of a team to provide universal, targeted and specialist input to empower and support healthcare staff and families to best meet the feeding, developmental and communication needs of the babies and children.

Main duties of the job

The neonatal SALT service is overseen by a clinical lead neonatal SALT and a clinical lead SALT for dysphagia/complex needs

You will have a thorough knowledge of feeding difficulties in the context of a neonatal unit as well as an understanding of FiCare and BFI standards. You will be confident to assess dysphagia referrals from the small paediatric ward within the hospital. Excellent interaction, team working and problem-solving skills are required.

You will be well supported via robust clinical supervision and have access to excellent CPD opportunities. You will be responsible for supervising band 5/6 therapist(s) across the service.

• Work in partnership with familes engaging them in the intervention and ensuring they are involved at each step and are well informed.
• To work as in integral member of multi-agency, multi-disciplinary teams that include parents, nurses, doctors, AHPs and Psycholgical professionals.
• To manage a  caseload independently and share information with colleagues to ensure the best care.
• To maintain up to date knowledge of the evidence base within the field.
• To provide advice to non-specialists and other specialists/ professionals within the clinical field.

Detailed job description and main responsibilities

The full job description provides an overview of the key tasks and responsibilities of the role, and the person specification outlines the qualifications, skills, experience and knowledge required. For both documents please view the attachment/s on this page

The person specification below is not the full person specification, but outlines the criteria against which your application form will be assessed.