Highly Specialist Speech and Language Therapist

Job overview

We are looking for an experienced and motivated HCPC registered Highly Specialist Speech and Language Therapist to join our Community Speech and Language Therapy Service as a Band 7 Team Lead, covering the West Lancashire patch on a 12-month fixed-term basis. This is an exciting opportunity for someone who is passionate about leading high-quality community Speech and Language Therapy services and supporting teams to deliver safe, effective and person-centred care across a range of community settings.

The post holder will have responsibility for the delivery of the clinical service within the defined area, providing visible leadership and day-to-day management to the team. You will play a key role in ensuring services are efficient, effective, well-co-ordinated and responsive, with quality and patient experience at the centre of everything you do.

You will provide leadership, management and communication for the team, supporting staff performance, service development and continuous improvement. The role includes ensuring delivery of the quality strategy within the designated area through the development of effective systems, processes, governance and assurance arrangements that support high standards of care.

Main duties of the job

The post holder will provide clinical leadership and day-to-day management to the clinical team and will be responsible for the delivery of the service within the defined area. You will work in partnership with other services and key stakeholders to help ensure patients and clients are treated in the most appropriate setting, supporting a co-ordinated and responsive approach to care. The role includes providing caseload oversight and clinical supervision to maintain high standards of practice, alongside full line management responsibility for the team, ensuring effective delegation, staff support and the safe delivery of patient care. You will also contribute to service development, quality improvement and the consistent delivery of high-quality, person-centred care across the West Lancashire service.

Detailed job description and main responsibilities

Provide clinical leadership and management to the clinical team.

Be responsible for the delivery of the service within the area.

Work in partnership with other services/stakeholders etc., to enable patients/clients to be treated in the appropriate setting.

Ensure that the team provides a high quality service to its clients by providing caseload and clinical supervision.

Have full line management responsibility for the team ensuring appropriate delegation and delivery of patients/client care.

Ensure that teams work proactively in order to deliver anticipatory and maintenance care, providing a responsive service to patients/clients with both planned and unplanned care needs.

Maintain clinical credibility by providing clinical care and supporting members of the team within the clinical environment.

Participate in the development of caseload management across the local health economy.

Provide leadership and mentoring to those staff developing into a caseload management role.

Acts as an advocate and champion for patients/clients in a variety of forums and professional groups and challenge attitudes and behaviour.

Implement plans for the team including rotas and schedules/working patterns to ensure business continuity.

Practice autonomously and demonstrate evidence based clinical decision making.

Provide clinical expertise and knowledge to the team when managing complex and highly complex situations.

Assess patient/client conditions and consider a range of options when delivering complex and highly complex clinical care.

Work in collaboration with other stakeholders to deliver services to patients/clients.

Following holistic assessment of health needs, develop individualised care plans to fulfil those needs, with the involvement of patients/clients and carers.

Implement and evaluate care delivery for patients/clients with identified needs.

Ensure that all clinical activity provided by the team directly reflects the core objectives of health promotion, supported self care, disease specific management, management of long term conditions and end of life/palliative care.

Set objectives by which performance will be monitored.

Work with the service lead to deliver local based services, by participating in meetings and communicating the outcomes to staff.

Provide reports to the service lead on staff and patient activity as requested.

Work in collaboration with others to support practice development and service modernisation.

Contribute to the development of role and service redesign.

Actively participate in policy and service development authoring protocols as required.

Provide induction to the local working environment, and policies for new team members and students.

Be an authorised signatory, ensuring probity in the authorisation of timecards and mileage claims.

Monitor budgets reporting over/under spending to the budget holder

Undertake personal development plans (PDP) and ensure all team members

Contribute to the development of policy and services to reflect local needs

Have up to date PDPs, monitor Knowledge and Skills Framework (KSF) and reviews

Ensure that all staff attend mandatory training

Ensure that administration and clerical duties are appropriately delegated to clerical support officers

Provide data that supports the monitoring of team contract and objectives

Participate in audits and research, as required

Participate in individual and group supervision.

Implement mentorship and clinical supervision with the team.

Ensure that record keeping within the team is consistent with professional standards.

Initiate training and development of team members. Monitor and maintain standards of patient care delivery. Including maintaining and monitoring of clinical competency and standards of record keeping

In conjunction with the service lead, ensure systems are in place for the ongoing review and assessment of care provision and delivery.

Work within guidelines to identify and manage risk, reporting identified risks to the service lead.

Report any incidents as per Trust policies and support or undertake any investigations as delegated by the service lead.

Monitor and ensure that the quality of the patient care delivered by the team is evidenced based and supported by best practice, through the use of audit, caseload and clinical supervision.

Participate in patient satisfaction reporting to improve patient care.

Maintain registration in line with professional bodies.

Provide support to team members holding responsibility for mentoring students.

Identify skills deficits within the team identify methods of addressing these to support service delivery, improvement and development