Senior Occupational Therapist

Job overview

A new opportunity has arisen for an experienced Occupational Therapist with an interest in specialist medicine and frailty to join our friendly integrated therapy team at Charing Cross Hospital. You will be based on one of our elderly medicine wards where you will lead the team seeing a variety of patients with a broad range of conditions, co-morbidities and complex social situations to manage. You'll form an integral part of the multidisciplinary team, helping plan timely and safe discharges.

If you want to develop more confidence in your prioritisation, time management and problem solving skills, then this is an ideal opportunity to gain more experience in these areas. Current therapists working within the team have said that they’ve gained an incredible amount of knowledge, skills and confidence which they will take forward to the next stages of their careers. In addition, you will have supervisory responsibility for a rotational Band 5 occupational therapist.

It is essential that you are a team player with a positive outlook, enthusiasm and the ability to learn and develop new skills. You will also have the opportunity to participate in the front door weekend rota, gaining skills in rapid assessment and admission avoidance. The ability to work autonomously, but also well within a multi-disciplinary team is required, as is the ability to promote the role of Therapies within specialist medicine and the implementation of evidence-based practice.

Main duties of the job

• To be professionally and legally accountable for all aspects of own work, including management of patients in your care.
• To undertake a comprehensive assessment and re-assessment of patients including those with diverse or complex presentation for a designated caseload to establish clients' physical, cognitive, perceptual, psychological and social functioning.
• To communicate effectively, using a range of verbal and non-verbal skills, with patients and carers/family to motivate, engage to participate in therapy and to ensure an understanding of their condition.
• To deal sensitively and constructively with patients and carers/family, who have high levels of anxiety frustration or aggression caused by a variety of issues, such as pain, poor prognosis or limited mobility.
• To plan and prioritise own caseload independently on a day-to-day basis to ensure patients are appropriately seen, in conjunction with the priorities of the team and to give assistance to other team members as required.
• To be flexible in the organisation of own caseload and to respond to predictable and unpredictable service needs throughout the day.
• To undertake the measurement and evaluation of your own work and current practice through the use of projects, audit or outcome measures, whether individually or with the support of senior staff.

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 overviews, please view the Job Description attachment with the job advert.