Go back Countess of Chester Hospital NHS Foundation Trust
Occupational Therapist
The closing date is 16 January 2026
As a Band 6 Occupational Therapist, you'll step into a dynamic, forward‑thinking team where your expertise will shape patient journeys and drive service innovation. If you're motivated, enthusiastic, and ready to grow, this is the perfect environment to thrive.
Opportunities You'll Experience
* Specialist Clinical Exposure: Work with patients across diverse surgical and medical pathways – from trauma to oncology, gastrology and general surgery – gaining specialist expertise that will set you apart.
* Innovation in Practice: Contribute to service development projects, introducing new treatment approaches, digital tools, and patient‑centred innovations.
* Leadership Development: Take on mentoring responsibilities for Band 5 OTs, Therapy Assistants, and students, building your leadership profile.
* Interdisciplinary Collaboration: Work closely with surgeons, nurses, physiotherapists, and other specialists, becoming a key voice in multidisciplinary team decisions.
* Research & Governance: Engage in clinical audits, service evaluations, and governance activities that influence trust‑wide practice.
* Acute & Community Balance: Experience the fast‑paced acute hospital environment while also occasionally supporting patients in community and home settings, ensuring safe discharges and continuity of care.
* Career Progression: Build the skills and portfolio needed to move into advanced practice, specialist Band 7 roles, or leadership positions.
Main duties of the job
* Work as an autonomous practitioner to perform a specialist occupational therapy assessment of patients with diverse presentations. Use clinical reasoning to provide a diagnosis and develop, deliver and adapt individualised treatment programmes.
* Implement monitoring and evaluation of treatment to measure progress and outcomes, ensuring effectiveness of interventions and service delivery.
* Be professionally and legally accountable for all aspects of own work and that of supervised physiotherapists and assistants, holding responsibility for own caseload for a specialist area of the service, working without direct supervision.
* Provide clinical cover, as appropriate during staff absence, with guidance and support of a senior member of staff if required.
* Participate in 7‑day working as per service requirements, in evening and/or weekend duty rotas and/or emergency/on‑call rotas. Provide treatment to patients and advice to medical and nursing staff and other members of the multidisciplinary team without direct supervision.
* Identify and carry out Home Visits in accordance with Trust and Professional standards and assess patient condition and suitability for discharge, and where appropriate supervise physiotherapists and assistants in these tasks.
What We're Looking For
* HCPC registered Occupational Therapist
* Broad Band 5 NHS rotational experience
* Strong organisational skills, time management, and resilience under pressure.
About us
The Countess of Chester Hospital NHS Foundation Trust provides services to West Cheshire and to Welsh patients covered by Betsi Cadwaladr University Health Board. The Trust works collaboratively within the wider Cheshire and Merseyside Health and Care Partnership. Its services are provided from three locations:
* The Countess of Chester Hospital: providing 438 general and acute beds
* Ellesmere Port Hospital: providing 56 beds as a rehabilitation, intermediate and outpatient facility
* Tarporley War Memorial Hospital: a base for community services which serve the local rural population.
The Trust employs over 5916 staff (headcount) which includes temporary bank staff and provides acute emergency and elective services, primary care direct access services and obstetric services to a population of approximately 411,000. This includes 361,000 residents in Chester and West Cheshire which includes Ellesmere Port and Neston as well as the Deeside area of Flintshire which has a population of approximately 50,000.
Job responsibilities
See Job Description for further details.
Recruitment details
Recruitment selection processes are based on competence (see Person specification) and values.
Please note applicants will be required to pay for their DBS check. Costs will be deducted from their salary over the first three months of employment.
You are encouraged to enrol for the DBS Update Service. A small annual fee of £16 per year applies.
New entrants to the NHS will commence on the minimum of the scale stated above.
Applicants are advised to apply early as if a large number of applications are received for this post, we reserve the right to close the vacancy prior to the advertised date.
Good luck with your application.
Person Specification
Key qualifications, experience, knowledge and skills required for the role are as follows.
Qualifications
* Degree in Occupational Therapy or equivalent
* HCPC Registered
* Membership of professional body
Experience
* Evidence of post graduate short courses
* Evidence of CPD and reflective practice
* Evidence of group working and team working
* Evidence of audit and/or research work
Knowledge
* Knowledge of current best practice in specialist OT area
* Understanding of professional ethics and their application in practice
* Knowledge of the principles of clinical governance
Skills
* Communication skills (verbal and non‑verbal)
* Ability to reflect and critically appraise own performance and that of others.
* Ability to organise and respond to complex information, and work under pressure
* Good interpersonal and organisational skills
* Supervisory skills
Disclosure and Barring Service Check
This post is subject to the Rehabilitation of Offenders Act (Exceptions Order) 1975 and as such it will be necessary for a submission for Disclosure to be made to the Disclosure and Barring Service (formerly known as CRB) to check for any previous criminal convictions.
Countess of Chester Hospital NHS Foundation Trust
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