Wellbeing and Physiotherapy Practitioner

Job overview

Are you looking for a role where you can help our service users enjoy a good quality of life?

People diagnosed with an SMI (Serious Mental Illness) have significantly worse health outcomes and life expectancies.  We have created a new role which combines supporting patients on the mental health wards to move more, move well, move for fun and implement other lifestyle changes to improve their physical health and address this inequality.

The main aim of this role is to focus on physical health rehabilitation, engagement, and enablement to optimize service users’ ability to live independently and enjoy a good quality of life.

You will work alongside physiotherapists, physical health leads, dietitians, occupational therapists, nurses, activity coordinators and peer support workers to increase access to exercise, movement and physical rehabilitation. You will also be carrying out physical health interventions prescribed by the physiotherapy team.

This is a unique opportunity for a professional, ideally someone with a physical health rehabilitation or fitness background, who has experience or wants to work with individuals with mental health problems. The individual must understand the impact of physical functioning on mental health rehabilitation, enablement and recovery.

Main duties of the job

You will be part of the ward-based MDT. You will have clinical supervision from a qualified physiotherapist and a physical health lead nurse, join in service training and meet regularly with other physiotherapy TI’s and fitness instructors from a range of mental health services.

You will support the ward-based multi-disciplinary team (MDT) by working closely with service users to achieve their physical health goals and facilitating opportunities to enhance their engagement in community-based physical health resources. Effective and efficient liaison with other teams and agencies will be essential to ensure collaborative working for the benefit of service users.

You will be expected to support the ward-based multi-disciplinary team (MDT) by working closely with service users to achieve their physical health goals and facilitating opportunities to enhance their engagement in community-based physical health resources. Effective and efficient liaison with other teams and agencies will be essential to ensure collaborative working for the benefit of service users.

You will also carry out physical health interventions prescribed by the physiotherapist whilst supporting the ward team with liaison with the Mental Health Physiotherapist.

Detailed job description and main responsibilities

We hope that the advert has given you a clear understanding of the skills we are seeking and the opportunity at hand. You will need to use the “supporting statement” element of your application form to demonstrate your suitability for this role and you should refer to the job description, person specification and the guidance notes attached to this role to help you tailor your application.

The essential and desirable criteria will be used to shortlist for interview, and you should ensure that you refer to these within your application to increase your chances of being selected for interview.