Specialist Speech and Language TherapistNHS

Job summary

This is an opportunity to develop your adult acquired SaLT skills with acute and stroke in-patients in a busy NHS hospital setting, as part of a supportive SaLT team based at Salisbury District Hospital. This is a full time fixed term contract post. This post can be tailored to either a current Band 6 Specialist SaLTs looking to extend skills and experience , or to an current Band 5 SaLT who has worked for more than a year as a qualified SaLT in an NHS hospital setting and has already gained NQP and dysphagia competencies. Experience of working in an NHS adult in-patient setting is essential for all candidates.

Qualifications required include a degree in Speech & Language Therapy, and ideally postgraduate training (or qualification) in adult dysphagia. Registration with the Health & Care Professions Council is essential. Membership of the Royal College of Speech & Language Therapists is desirable.

Postgraduate experience includes autonomous assessment, diagnosis and treatment of adults with swallowing and communication impairments from a wide range of acquired neurological conditions including Stroke, in an in-patient NHS setting. The applicants must flexible, be able to use initiative well, have effective caseload management and good clinical decision-making skills.

Main duties of the job

Your focus would be clinical work both in the Acute team across a range of 18 acute wards & units (general medical, surgical, & elderly), and potentially on the Stroke Unit. You will have responsibility to manage patient assessment & treatment decisions, and ensure excellent liaison with SaLT and MDT colleagues.

You may be required to contribute to the development of the SaLT team, including student supervision, NQP supervision, and in house CPD. You would be involved in wider department initiatives such as link roles, improving MDT working in specific areas (e.g. on the new elderly ward, in-patient PD or Stroke) as well as being involved in training hospital staff in communication and swallowing.

The SaLT team embraces new ways of working and has worked hard to be at the forefront of helpful and emerging technology. Therefore your patients have access to a range of instrumental dysphagia investigations for swallow assessments and instrumental devices for treatment. For patients with communication disorders, we have a broad range of computer based therapy available, and quick access to AAC.

We feel strongly that it is important to provide our SaLT team members with as much training and development as we can and as needed, and as a small team we meet often. We thrive on an ethos of sharing our learning, being supportive to each other, and being helpful and flexible at work when needed.

Job description

Please see attached Job description and person specification for full details of roles and responsibilities.

About us

Salisbury NHS Foundation Trust (SFT) is an innovative hospital with a proud heritage and over 250 years of experience behind us. Here we're driven to deliver an outstanding experience for everyone and have been well regarded for the quality of care and treatment we continue to provide for our patients and also our staff.

We are an acute Trust, rated "Good" by the CQC, with a track record of high performance providing regional and super regional specialist services such as: Burns, Plastics & Reconstructive Surgery, Wessex Regional Genetics Laboratory, Wessex Rehabilitation, Spires Cleft Centre and the Duke of Cornwall Spinal Treatment Centre. We have about 470 beds and employ over 4000 staff.

We support flexible working and will consider requests taking into account the needs of the service. We think working here is pretty rewarding. You can access a range of NHS discounts, receive a minimum of 35 days paid holiday (pro rata), and we offer a generous pension scheme. On-site benefits include car parking (fee applies), leisure centre, day nursery and holiday play scheme.

Salisbury is an attractive place to live and work and really gives you the best of everything. With easy access to London and local airports, the city of Southampton is only a short train or car journey away or if you prefer the sea, Bournemouth is also accessible. Don't just take our word for it, why not explore what Salisbury has to offer by visiting www.experiencesalisbury.co.uk