# Principal Occupational Therapist > NHS job listing from Job Clerk for West London NHS Trust. ## Canonical URLs - **HTML:** https://www.jobclerk.com/job/principal-occupational-therapist/137eb4c8-29ad-44fd-a4c8-29b338b0a44c - **Markdown:** https://www.jobclerk.com/job/principal-occupational-therapist/137eb4c8-29ad-44fd-a4c8-29b338b0a44c.md ## Summary - **Status:** Live - **Employer:** West London NHS Trust - **Town:** Southall - **Region:** London - **Country:** England - **Profession:** Occupational Therapist - **Grade:** Band 8 - **Salary:** £66,274 - £73,496 per annum inclusive of 20% HCAS - **Contract type:** 6 months (Fixed Term) - **Employment type:** Full time - 37.5 hours per week - **Closing date:** 2026-08-08T23:59:00.000Z - **Posted:** 2026-07-27T00:02:20.127Z - **Source information URL:** https://www.healthjobsuk.com/job/UK/London/London/West_London_NHS_Trust/Senior_Nurse/Senior_Nurse-v8182206 - **Application URL:** https://apps.trac.jobs/job-advert/8182206?ShowJobAdvert=&feedid=9002 - **Employer website:** https://www.westlondon.nhs.uk ## Job Content ### Job overview Principal Occupational Therapist (band 8a) Full-time (37.5hrs/week), secondment/fixed-term contract for 6 months An exciting opportunity has arisen for a Principal Occupational Therapist within the Mental Health Autism Team. Over the past 2 years, the service has expanded from inpatient and crisis services only, to cover a defined cohort of autistic service users within community mental health services, who are at increased risk of readmissions to inpatient mental health services or frequently utilise unplanned care. . The post spans acute and community mental health services across Ealing, Hammersmith & Fulham and Hounslow. The post will be based across both Hammersmith and Fulham and Lakeside Mental Health Units, but will involve outreach provision and therefore travel across all three boroughs. As a senior clinician, the post holder would have a clinical leadership role, supporting in the clinical governance of the Mental Health Autism Team. The post holder will use therapeutic approaches to engage autistic individuals and to facilitate communication that will support the diagnostic pathway and the care of autistic people within mental health services. The role will also include drawing on profession-specific skills relevant to the client group and setting. The post holder will be actively involved in shaping the development of the service, care pathways and interfaces with other services. ### Main duties of the job This secondment/fixed-term role offers an exciting opportunity for an ambitious and experienced Principal Occupational Therapist looking to specialise in mental health and Autism within a clinical leadership role. The successful candidate will offer a thorough, compassionate and evidence-based service to adults with a suspected or confirmed diagnosis of Autism within inpatient, crisis and community mental health services, with the community focus being on people at risk of readmission to inpatient mental health services or who frequently utilise unplanned care. They will also be involved in co-producing and co-delivering training to staff, and in the establishment and facilitation of an autism consultation provision for community mental health services. As a senior clinician, the post holder would have an integral role in the development and delivery of a safe and effective service, both through direct clinical work and provision of supervision and leadership.  The post holder will have knowledge and understanding of taking a strengths-based approach to working with autistic people, supporting the individual and teams to identify and meet unmet needs, and tailoring care to the needs of the individual. They will draw on profession-specific skills relevant to the client group and setting. ### Detailed job description and main responsibilities The Candidate Pack provides an overview of the key tasks and responsibilities of the role, and the person specification outlines the qualifications, skills, experience and knowledge required. Please view as attached The person specification below is not the full person specification, but outlines the criteria against which your application form will be assessed. ## Person Specification ### Other **Essential** - Knowledge of Standards of practice of the relevant professional body (Health and Care Professions Council, Nursing and Midwifery Council, Social Work England) - To be capable of being guided by precedent, clearly defined policies, procedures and codes of conduct. - To adhere to the security procedures within inpatient, crisis and community-based services. **Desirable** - Membership of a relevant professional special interest group - Membership of relevant practice research network ### Experience **Essential** - Minimum of 3 years’ experience in clinical practice at a senior level - Experience of providing care to autistic people in an inpatient, crisis or community mental health setting - Experience of working in a multi-cultural service - Experience of working in a clinical capacity with autistic people - Experience of work in MDT setting and communicating complex information therein. - Experience of participating in reflective practice, case formulation meetings or team debriefs. - Experience of providing clinical supervision. - Experience and understanding of a wide range of art processes and equipment - Experience of assessing and formulating risk and supporting a reduction in risk - Experience of providing placement opportunities for clinical trainees. **Desirable** - Experience of work with interpreters - Lived experience of Autism. - Lived experience of mental health difficulties. - Experience of undertaking autism diagnostic assessments. ### Knowledge & Skills **Essential** - Specialist professional knowledge acquired through clinical training or equivalent level plus specialist short courses, CPD, clinical supervision of practice. - Understanding of how profession-specific interventions and approaches may benefit autistic individuals and also of possible barriers to engaging in care. - Understanding of how to adapt communications and interventions to the needs of autistic individuals - Ability to organise and prioritise caseload and other responsibilities - Ability to explain one’s clinical speciality/role to a wide range of professionals, service users and other stakeholders. - Knowledge of other modalities and approaches (e.g. medical model, systemic, behavioural) sufficient to contribute to multi-disciplinary planning and service provision. - To understand psychiatric diagnosis and the requirement to communicate about diagnoses, whilst also acknowledging the alternative in the form of a formulation. - Able to make judgements based on formulation, clinical information and environmental events within a session and make decisions on this basis e.g. with regard to feedback to nursing or other staff. - Ability to hypothesise about emotional states in cases where the individual struggles more to identify emotions, and working with the autistic individual to develop their recognition of their own emotional states. - To judge when a service user or colleague might need emotional support and to show interest in understanding how they are feeling and help them think through ways of coping that are known to help reduce distress safely. - Ability to communicate complex, sensitive and potentially contentious information to service users in a way that addresses psychological resistance and the propensity of the service users towards hostile reactions. - To know when to raise a safeguarding concern and when it is necessary to seek immediate clinical supervision. - Understanding of the how the dynamics of teams and between professionals in general can be influenced by the psychological impact of work in a mental health environment. - Understanding of national healthcare initiatives (e.g. the recovery model, clinical governance, evidence based practice) and legislation (e.g. the Mental Health Act and the Mental Capacity Act) and their relevance to this post and to the organisation in general. - Operational - Able to respond adaptably to rapidly changing service demands - An ability to document clinical information in the care record in an accurate, concise and non-judgemental manner which supports a psychological understanding. - Use IT packages – word processing, e-mail and internet, SPSS, Excel and Access - Ability to use or learn NHS clinical systems - General - Able to function in potentially traumatic circumstances and in highly emotionally distressing circumstances on a frequent basis (e.g. in dealing with service users with serious mental illness, histories of homicide and serious violence, self-harm, sexual abuse). - Awareness of diversity of cultural norms and being able to respond to this appropriately **Desirable** - To know about systems based interventions supporting safety within inpatient, crisis and community mental health services, e.g. Safewards, No Force First. - To have an understanding of trauma-informed care and to understand the concept of stabilisation, psychological containment and validation and the rational for these when an individual is presenting in crisis. - Knowledge and/or training in Positive Behavioural Support - To understand the 5Ps formulation model and have the ability to describe this to patients. - Knowledge of identifying and adapting for sensory differences. - Autism-specialist interventions, for example social stories, comic strip conversations, formulations and recommendations for behaviours of concern. - IT skills: e.g. Word; Excel, Photoshop. - Knowledge of national systems in place in relation to autistic people, e.g. Dynamic Support Registers, Care and Treatment Reviews. - Experience of developing resources to facilitate communication in autistic people, e.g. social stories, visual communication cards. ### Personal Qualities **Essential** - Ability to discuss personal reactions (thoughts, feelings, behaviours) in clinical supervision, reflective practice, formulation meetings to plan safer therapeutic care. - To be courageous and interested in developing confidence in expressing an opinion which is different from the dominant view, but might be more helpful in supporting a service user. - A desire to motivate, encourage, support others, and contribute to a collective care offer from the inpatient MDT that results in a positive experience for staff and service users - A desire to learn and use non-pathological language and terms which imply chronic disability and negatively impact of self-esteem and undermine recovery. - To be able to tolerate witnessing extreme behaviour and listening to life histories which might contain disturbing facts (sexual trauma, physical abuse, neglect, violence, political and civil wars which deviate from the dominant accepted norm in the UK). - To have an optimistic and pragmatic attitude and a proactive approach to identifying and implementing solutions which lead to keep the ward running smoothly. - To be interested in a wide range of psychological concepts and show enthusiasm and interest in learning about a range of approaches (Systemic, behavioural, Trauma-informed, CBT, DBT, ACT, CAT, Schema). - To have personal values aligned to forming positive relationships with service users and colleagues and a willingness to show behaviours that correspond to the Trust’s Values. ### Qualifications & Training **Essential** - A recorded/registered qualification occupational therapy. - Registration with the Health and Care Professions Council. - Educated to degree level or equivalent **Desirable** - Autism specific training, such as working with behaviours of concern, sensory training. - Training in diagnostic assessments, such as ADOS-2 or ADI-R - Training in clinical leadership - Profession-specific training relevant to the role, such as Sensory Integration. ## Documents - [jd & ps (pdf, 968.2kb)](https://www.healthjobsuk.com/documents?vdoc=10485630) - [oh requirements (pdf, 304.6kb)](https://www.healthjobsuk.com/documents?edoc=3067) - [occupational health requirements (pdf, 376.0kb)](https://www.healthjobsuk.com/documents?edoc=3003) ## Agent Notes - This Markdown page is generated from the same Job Clerk job record as the HTML job detail page. - Use the canonical HTML URL for user-facing references. - Use the application URL when the user wants to apply on the source NHS site.