Therapeutic Support Worker

Job overview

Please note: at this stage, the role is open only to colleagues currently employed within Kent and Medway NHS Trusts, the Kent and Medway Integrated Care Board (ICB) and Medway Community Healthcare. Nursing vacancies are also open to Student Nurses and Newly Qualified Nurses.

The Therapeutic Worker plays a vital role in supporting patients’ physical, emotional and psychological wellbeing through meaningful, person‑centred reablement activities. Working closely with the therapy and nursing teams, you will help design and deliver a varied programme of group and individual activities that promote independence, confidence and quality of life.

Evidence shows that purposeful activity reduces hospital‑acquired deconditioning, improves mood, lowers fall risk and supports recovery. Your work will be central to each patient’s rehabilitation plan, helping them prepare for discharge and maintain progress at home.

Main duties of the job

You will coordinate an inclusive timetable of therapeutic activities tailored to individual needs, collaborating with external partners, charities and volunteers to enhance the inpatient offer and support ongoing engagement after discharge. As part of the multidisciplinary team, you will contribute to holistic patient care within your scope of practice and may work across different community hospital sites to meet service needs across Kent and Medway.

• Work collaboratively with the multidisciplinary team (MDT).
• Develop, coordinate and deliver therapeutic reablement activities for all community hospital patients, providing an inclusive approach to ensure accessible reablement to all patients.
• Support patients and their families to be involved in activities to support ‘what is important tome’ and ‘this is me’ to enable person centred care.
• Support discharge planning through targeted activities and signposting in preparation for discharge.
• Work in collaboration with the multidisciplinary team to support individual patient’s physical, cognitive and emotional needs, particularly regarding reablement activity.
• Provide support to patients with cognitive needs, supporting delivery of enhanced therapeutic observation and care. This will require working closely with additional staff delivering 1:1 care, and where required referral to and liaison with the Dementia Nurse Specialist.

Detailed job description and main responsibilities

As a community Trust, many of our roles require individuals to be able to drive to perform their duties. Where driving is a requirement of the role, you will be asked to confirm that you hold a full UK driving licence or a full driving licence issued by an EU country (not exchanged from a non-EU country) to proceed with your application. We are committed to supporting candidates with disabilities into employment. If you are unable to drive due to a disability, please contact the Recruitment Team via [email protected], quoting the vacancy reference number, so we can support you further.

The job description and person specification gives you all the information you need about this role. Please look carefully at the criteria in the person specification and tell us what you have done that shows you meet this in your application. If you need an application form in an alternative format please let our recruitment team know. All information you supply on your application should, to the best of your knowledge, be true and accurate.

Still have questions? The recruiting manager would love to hear from you, their contact details can be found in the job advert.

We can get a lot of applications for some roles so to be in with the best chance of being shortlisted please make sure you apply as soon as possible. A vacancy may close early if there is a lot of interest in the job.

At KCHFT we strongly encourage colleagues in clinical and non-clinical roles who have direct or social contact with patients to be fully vaccinated. In this way we will be doing all we can to ensure your safety and that of your colleagues and the patients we serve.

Find out more about the community difference here.

Good luck! We can’t wait to meet you and welcome you to #teamKCHFT, #cometocommunity.