Consultant Psychiatrist in Old Age Psychiatry - EasingtonNHS

Job summary

This is an exciting opportunity for an old age consultant psychiatrist to become involved with the Easington community service.

The community teams provide mental health assessments for people who have memory problems or who have other mental health problems requiring secondary care intervention in the locality. Approximately 70% of referrals to the teams are due to organic presentations, most commonly dementia. The team works with patients who are predominantly aged 65 and over. However, the service is defined on the basis of need rather than age, and so people with cognitive presentations who are aged under 65, as well as people younger than 65 who have significant frailty, may be open to the team.

Main duties of the job

The Clinical PAs are 7.5 PA across the week, to include a combination of clinics at the team base, and home visits.

There is the potential that the Consultant Psychiatrist could be asked to take on Responsible Clinician duties in relation to patients who are subject to Community Treatment Orders and are open to the team, though the number of such patients is expected to be very low.

The post-holder is expected to prioritise Mental Health Act Assessments for their own patients during working hours, and be a qualified DOLS Mental Health Assessor for any patients on their personal caseload. Occasionally, there may be ad hoc Section 49 Mental Capacity Act reports to prepare,

Therefore, it is necessary for the post-holder to have Approved Clinician, Section 12 and DOLS Mental Health Assessor Status, and support can be provided to attain the latter if the prospective applicant does not already hold this status. The postholder will be expected to have a familiarity with important relevant legislation affecting the care of older people with mental illness.

The Trust is eager to support the development of a special interest and this is negotiable either at the time of employment or at the Annual Job Plan Review meeting. The postholder will work with the Locality Manager, General Manager, Lead Psychiatrist and Associate Clinical Director to plan and develop the service in line with the Service Business Plan.

Job description

Please see the attached job description for further information on this post. Please note the job description is currently waiting approval from the Royal College.

About us

We are one of the largest specialist mental health and learning disabilities trusts in the country, with an annual income of £320m and a workforce of some 6,700 staff operating from around 100 sites in Durham, Teesside, North Yorkshire and York and Selby. We provide a range inpatient and community services to 2m people living in County Durham, the Tees Valley, Scarborough, Whitby, Ryedale, Harrogate, Hambleton and Richmondshire. We also provide additional specialist services to other parts of Northern England.

We deliver our services by working in partnership with eight local authorities and clinical commissioning groups, a wide range of voluntary organisations, as well as service users, their carers and the public.

Psychiatrists are essential contributors to the majority of our mental health teams. Service users expect and are justified to expect collaborative relationships with dedicated psychiatrists who work consistently as part of effective services. The Medical Directorate and Medical Development Team are striving to improve medical workforce recruitment and retention in a variety of ways and the cornerstone of these efforts is The TEWV Charter for the Medical Workforce. (Please see attached Supporting Document).

The Trust welcomes conversations about flexible working practices.