Overview
The service serves an over-65 population of over 250,000. The service provides assessment and treatment of organic and functional mental illness for the population over 65 years old, although younger patients who are appropriate for the service are also accepted.
Durham & Tees Valley MHSOP is comprised of 9 community mental health teams, 3 inpatient wards for patients with functional illnesses and 3 inpatient wards for patients requiring organic assessment and treatment. The service also provides dedicated MHSOP Crisis, Intensive Community Liaison and Care Home Liaison teams.
Working relationships between the teams are close, with regular input by community staff during inpatient stays of their patients. Crisis services provide weekend and out of hours cover. The community mental health teams provide a full service during the working week, and a limited service at weekends.
The Durham & Darlington MHSOP service also operates a full liaison psychiatry service to our local acute trust. Although the liaison service works with adults of all ages, there is recognition for the specialist needs of older people and therefore, there is separate Old Age Psychiatry input into the liaison team from a dedicated consultant psychiatrist and Advanced Nurse Practitioners.
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. The Clinical PAs are 7.5 PA across the week, working with the Derwentside and Chester-le-Street Community Mental Health Team.
This post provides consultant leadership to the community team, working closely with other consultant colleagues working in the County Durham area CMHTs, and the consultants and teams at our inpatient MHSOP services.
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.
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.
There are 2.5 supporting PAs with active encouragement to use these for some of the following activities.
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 are a multi-award winning trust and are included within the Health Service Journals Best 100 Places to Work. The trust take a positive and proactive approach to support staff in their personal development and has embedded the Talent Management approach within the Trust.
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. Our medical staffing shortage puts strain on services and puts strain on workforce wellbeing and costs extend beyond the financial. 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 - see attached Supporting Document.
The Trust welcomes a conversation about flexible working.
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