Speech and Language Therapist

Job overview

Would you like to be part of community Speech and Language Therapy for adults with Learning Disabilities and to develop your skills and career in this area?

The post holder will be working within a Learning Disability specialist community team across the Black Country area. This is an innovative team of different disciplines and specialties who will give a supportive start to your career.

You would be working with our teams of therapists and assistants, providing a communication service for this varied population. There would also be opportunity to build on dysphagia competencies in this role.

Main duties of the job

Assess, diagnose and manage the communication and/or swallowing needs of patients receiving clinical assessment and intervention in community settings. Responsible for initial patient diagnosis and assessment under the supervision of a senior SLT clinician:

• Collection of detailed case history information
• Informal assessment and observation
• Undertakes clinical work with individuals and groups of clients
• Uses formal standardised assessment and informal assessment procedures
• Reads and abides by risk assessments relating to patients of the service
• Communicates assessment and therapeutic findings within the multi-disciplinary team
• Completes contemporaneous case notes and written clinical information completion according to Trust procedures
• Undertakes clinical work with individuals and groups of clients with guidance from senior SLT
• Develops coordinated multidisciplinary programmes of care / care packages
• Makes decisions leading to SLT review or discharge of clients and/or referral to other services, as appropriate
• Is responsible for managing own community clinical caseload under guidance of a more senior clinician

Detailed job description and main responsibilities

• Contributes to audit, research and developments in the clinical field and service as directed by service leads.
• Provides advice in relation to care of clients with specific communication and swallowing needs to the multi-disciplinary team.
• Provides both direct and indirect  intervention, consultation, advice and support; working within a multi-disciplinary model to a complex caseload in order to ensure that the inter-agency needs of clients are met, seeking highly specialist support and second opinions from senior clinical leads for the most complex patients.
• Promotes, supports and integrates the Royal College of Speech and Language Therapist’s guidance and standards into all clinical work.
• Actively participates and supports MDT intervention by regularly attending patient MDT meetings and clinical reviews.
• Liaises both orally and in writing with any significant others involved in the management of the client, within and outside the NHS, to ensure the client’s needs are met effectively and efficiently.
• Functions as a fully integrated multi-disciplinary team member supporting and facilitating communication within the therapeutic process including MDT clinical formulation and reflective practice
• Provides specific communication and/or dysphagia training alongside more senior colleagues to the MDT, the patient and their environment as part of clinical intervention.