Senior Home Treatment Team Practitioner

Job overview

The Croydon Home Treatment Teams provide 7 day a week, crisis assessment and intensive home treatment to patients with the aim of preventing in- patient admission where possible or if admission is required facilitating earlier discharge.

Our focus is to support service users to remain in their own home in order to aid their recovery during the crisis episode.

You will be a qualified Mental Health Nurse, Occupational Therapist or Social Worker. You will need to have post qualification experience in mental health and preferably within crisis services.

Main duties of the job

A track record in working with and involving carers and service users in service development and delivery.

When working in the borough HTT, practitioners undertake assessments and treatment as required. The person will lead in the assessment, co-ordination, planning, implementation, evaluation and delivery of home treatment for people in acute psychiatric crisis.

The post holder will play a key role in the current development of the team and help implement the acute care pathway's aims and objectives, as well as helping to ensure good links with referring inpatient and community teams, with a view to reducing the number and length of inpatient admissions. Effective gatekeeping assessment and the identification and delivery of the best treatment packages for people presenting to services in crisis will also be key.The post holder will work as an experienced mental health professional (Nurse, OT or Social Worker) who, acting within their own professional boundaries will provide care for presenting service users from initial history taking, clinical assessment, diagnosis, treatment and evaluation of care. The post holder will supervise junior members of staff and support the work of the senior team members of the team.

The post holder may be required to work across different Trust sites according to the needs of the Home Treatment Service Line.

Detailed job description and main responsibilities

Key Responsibilities:

Clinical: - To provide rapid, crisis assessments for clients in a mental health crisis in order to ensure the right intervention is provided at the right time for service users presenting with mental health diagnoses and any comorbid conditions In addition, to support early discharge from the inpatient wards. - To deliver a range of effective, service user-centred interventions aimed at crisis resolution and promoting recovery. Supporting service users to adopt recovery strategies that promote their wellbeing, healthy lifestyle, independence and self-care.

- To undertake thorough risk assessment of all service users in line with policy standards in order to manage risk safely and effectively. - To ensure that care is carefully and meaningfully planned within the multidisciplinary team, delivered to a high standard and evaluated regularly.

-To rapidly and continuously evaluate the patient’s changing condition and response to therapeutic interventions and modifies the plan of care for optimal patient outcome.- To undertake the safe and effective discharge of patients and ensure the smooth transition of care from HTT to other services. - To operate within the legal requirements of the Mental Health Act and be able to exercise independent judgement in the assessment of mental health conditions.

- To escalate and refer the needs of service users presenting with complex long term conditions (e.g. diabetes, asthma,) - To ensure that Safeguarding issues are acted upon and reported appropriately in line with the Trust’s Safeguarding Policies. - Maintain relevant clinical and pharmaceutical knowledge, critically appraise and apply information in practice. - Promote and deliver evidence based care for service users with mental health conditions in their own homes. - To carry out physical observations in accordance with Trust and local policy, liaising with medical and senior nursing staff as appropriate. - To administer or issue medication dependent on role with knowledge of its purpose, contraindications and side effects, relating that information to service users in a way they will understand. - Support service users to adopt recovery strategies that promote their wellbeing, healthy lifestyle, independence and self-care. - Actively promote health education that may include providing alternative materials to support service users and carers in making decisions regarding their care and treatment. - To provide relevant support to carers and families in relation to their rights as carers and actively support their involvement in the care of the service user. - To apply infection control measures.