Primary Care Mental Health Specialist

Job overview

We have two Band 6 Primary Care Mental Health Specialist posts which is an exciting opportunity for two highly skilled and motivated, Registered Mental Health Nurse, Occupational Therapist or Social Worker’s to be part of the Transformation of mental health services within Leeds, specifically, the role of Primary Care Mental Health.

This exciting partnership, launched in November 2019, delivers an integrated service offering mental health support for people with common mental health problems. Together, our partnership helps thousands of people in Leeds to increase their resilience and live their best lives within their community.

The primary aim of the team is to support individuals with an unmet mental health need.

The role involves liaising with General Practice, the Community Mental Health Teams, Psychology and third sector colleagues to ensure the appropriate service is available to the individual. Where this cannot be found, we ourselves would offer short-term interventions, including formulation, risk assessment and crisis planning, psychoeducation and coping strategy work.

Main duties of the job

The post holder will be expected to be able to work both autonomously and as part of a wider MDT. They will also provide leadership within their Primary Care Network (PCN) area and provide clinical supervision and support to their colleagues and wider team. This is a hybrid role with a mixture of working within GP surgeries, community mental health team base and virtual working.

As a team we value unique skills, specialisms and professional interests. We work together to encourage and develop your skills further through formal and informal training. We would actively encourage people of all backgrounds and diversities who meet the essential criteria to apply, as we are seeking to ensure our workforce is as representative and diverse of the people of Leeds.

Detailed job description and main responsibilities

The post holder will provide access to triage, specialist mental health assessment, risk assessment, and brief intervention to prevent deterioration in mental health requiring a referral to secondary mental health services. The post holder will also provide access to triage, assessment and decision support for primary care colleagues and community mental health teams to ensure that service users with complex mental health needs access the correct pathway and intervention to meet their needs.

This will build upon Leeds' vision for the development of a new mental health framework for care in Leeds wrapping specialist mental health clinical knowledge and skills into primary and community settings under the Community Mental Health Transformation process.