Senior Specialist Speech and Language Therapist

Job overview

Join our passionate, forward-thinking, supportive team and take a leading role in shaping high-quality community paediatric SLT services.   This is an exciting opportunity for an experienced clinician ready to step into a senior position with real influence and autonomy.

You’ll co-ordinate and line manage the North Cambridge locality for the community paediatric SLT service, managing your own diverse caseload of pre-school and school-age children with a wide range of speech, language and communication needs.

Your expertise will guide colleagues through second opinions, collaborative problem-solving and shared clinical decision-making.  You will attend senior leadership service meetings, and chair your own locality meetings.  This role is perfect for someone who thrives on clinical challenge, values collaborative working and wants to make a visible impact on children, families and the wider service.  If you’re ready to lead, inspire and shape the future of community paediatric therapy in Cambridgeshire, we’d love to hear from you.

A typical day involves:

• Assessing and providing specialist intervention for children
• Supporting colleagues to manage their caseloads and time
• Providing clinical supervision
• Attending senior leadership meetings

The ability to work as part of the team and to have a flexible approach to work is essential.

Interviews: 22 July 2026

Should we receive a high number of applications, we reserve the right to close this vacancy at any point after 1 July

Main duties of the job

The post holder will have delegated responsibility for locality co-ordination and clinical management of the community paediatric service in a defined geographic locality. They will independently manage a community caseload in the locality.  The client group is children who have a range of difficulties in understanding and/or using speech and language.  S/he will provide supervision and guidance to other SLT colleagues. The locality co-ordinator’s role will involve setting priorities, initiating developments and carrying out audit in discussion with the Area & Clinical Lead. They will provide training in the area of clinical specialism acting as a resource to the wider multi-disciplinary team.  They will assume delegated responsibility for appraisal of junior colleagues. They will be a member of the senior staff team.

Detailed job description and main responsibilities

Main Duties and responsibilities

To independently manage a caseload of pre-school and school age children who have speech, and language communication difficulties.

To undertake a range of assessments, both standardised and non-standardised, taking account of medical, social and educational factors, which combined with highly specialist theoretical knowledge will lead to differential diagnosis

To plan, deliver and evaluate highly specialist intervention following professional guidelines and agreed service standards

As part of that process, to plan appropriate long term and short-term goals working towards discharge

To undertake administrative duties connected with the caseload including maintenance of case notes and provision of written reports, following service standards

To ensure that all work is carried out in close collaboration with all those involved in children’s care so that the approach to intervention and support is co-ordinated and comprehensive

To make onward referral as appropriate

To identify any variations to service delivery or demands and inform the Area & Clinical Lead of the likely impact on the service

Policy & service development

To initiate, develop policy, clinical guidelines, clinical governance and service development within the clinical specialism and locality, in discussion with the Area & Clinical Lead; this will involve piloting of new initiates with a view to implementing changes across the whole service

To develop care protocols and innovative practice in area of clinical specialism interpreting national and local initiatives

To be familiar with local and national standards and to work in line with these

To ensure that parents/carers are aware of the standards they should expect from the speech and language therapy service

Communication

To ensure effective communication of complex condition-related information to parents/carers regarding the assessment process, assessment findings and planned intervention, including engagement of parents/carers in intervention

To ensure children are involved in goal setting and decision making around their own care as appropriate to their age, developmental level and language skills

To ensure parents/carers are involved in decision making around their child’s care including discharge from the service

To liaise effectively and work in partnership with other professionals (particularly teachers and teaching assistants), including the development of shared goals for intervention

To ensure effective communication with and between all speech and language therapists and assistants in the locality in order to ensure the delivery of a good quality service in the locality

To write reports on children, in line with service standards, including contributions to statutory assessment

To offer advice to others concerning support for individual children

To actively contribute to case conferences/ review meetings for children on the caseload

To recognise how and when information may be shared within the bounds of confidentiality and the Data Protection Act

To attend SLT team meetings, actively contributing as appropriate

Contribute to EEC’s internal communication strategies ensuring effective two-way communication and engagement within the organisation

Contribute to EEC’s external communication strategies working with the Head of Communications to raise awareness and promote the reputation of EEC’s services

Training

To initiate the planning and delivery of training for other professionals and/or parents as appropriate.

To actively participate in and /or organise in-service training and other courses as appropriate to promote professional development

To identify training needs in the multi-disciplinary team needed to support the care of children on the caseload

To remain compliant with all mandatory training

People Management

To take delegated responsibility for co-ordination and clinical management of the community paediatric service to North Cambridge.

Responsible for day-to-day supervision of staff in the North Cambridge locality.

Maintaining own professional development and requirement to take part in appraisal and KSF process

To supervise and clinically support SLT assistants/ teaching assistants/volunteers as appropriate

To act as lead clinician across the service for clinical specialism including representing the SLT service in multi-agency working in that area delegated by the Service Lead

To supervise and clinically support speech and language therapy colleagues in specialist area

To mentor/supervise more junior SLTs providing support, including objective setting and review and contributing to induction

To provide clinical placements for SLT students including contributing to the assessment of exam placements

To take on delegated responsibility for the recruitment and selection process when required

To be an active member of the Senior Staff Team, attending meetings and taking on tasks as necessary

Research & development/audit

To participate in development of policy, clinical guidelines, clinical governance and service development through discussion and involvement in projects as appropriate, including innovative practice, in collaboration with colleagues

Responsibility for specific, clearly defined projects as delegated by the Area & Clinical Lead

To develop care protocols and innovative practice in area of clinical specialism

To be familiar with local and national standards and to work in line with these

To ensure that parents/carers are aware of the standards they should expect from the speech and language therapy service

Clinical and Practice Governance

Observe and maintain strict confidentiality with regards to any patient/family/staff/records and information in line with the requirements of the Data Protection Act.

Any data that is taken/shared as part of a phone call or transported, faxed or transferred electronically must be undertaken with regard to the Trust Information Governance and Information Security policies.

The post holder must adhere to the Trust risk assessment and risk management processes

The post holder must adhere to infection control policies and procedures

It is a condition of your employment that you are currently registered with HCPC and it is your responsibility to maintain your professional registration.

Undertake mandatory training and any other training relevant to the role as required by East of England Community Health and Care NHS Trust.

The post holder must participate in clinical and other audits as required

Provide patients and their families /carers with information on standards they should expect from the team

Participate in clinical supervision on a regular basis

The post holder is required to participate in relevant emergency preparedness process for their team.