Specialist Speech and Language Therapist
Band 6
Main area Speech & Language Therapy - Community Services Grade Band 6 Contract Permanent Hours
* Full time
* Part time
37.5 hours per week (Mon-Fri) Job ref 350-MHC7260016
Site Leigh Moss Community Mental Health Team Town Liverpool Salary £37,338 - £44,962 per annum / pro rata Salary period Yearly Closing 20/07/2025 23:59 Interview date 28/07/2025
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Mersey Care NHS Foundation Trust celebrates diversity and promotes equal opportunities; we are committed to challenging and eliminating racism and other forms of discrimination and advancing and promoting equality of opportunity in the provision of services and creating an inclusive environment for all employees. We believe that everyone has the right to be treated with dignity and respect.
We take positive action to support disadvantaged groups and also particularly encourage applications from ethnically diverse, disabled and LGBTQIA+ people that are under-represented in our workforce. Furthermore we welcome applications from reservists and ex-armed forces personnel as we recognise the benefits of the values, skills, training and experience that they bring to their work with us. We encourage all applicants to share their equality information with us.
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Job overview
Afabulous opportunity has arisen for a Speech and Language Therapist to be part of the team who provide a specialist mental health service across the vibrant city of Liverpool. We are looking for a dysphagia trained Speech and Language Therapist with a passion for providing patient-centred care to work in our Older Person Community Mental Health Team.
The position will be based within the community hub at Leigh Moss Hospital. The CMHT is an effective and dynamic multi-disciplinary team consisting of psychologists, occupational therapists, nurses, psychiatrists, physiotherapist, speech and language therapists and support staff.
We welcome enquiries and applications from aspiring or practising Band 6 SLTs looking to develop your skills and experience working with people with mental health conditions.
It is essential this post holder holds a UK Driving Licence as this is a community based role covering the footprint of Liverpool City Region.
To arrange an informal visit or to talk more about the role please contact Lauren McAlpine 0151 2506125 lauren.mcalpine@merseycare.nhs.uk
Main duties of the job
This role would provide the opportunity to develop your clinical skills with this patient group. The post holder will liaise with a wide range of professional and external agencies to ensure efficient, high quality patient care with regular support and peer supervision from a small friendly team. The post-holder will have opportunities to develop skills related to dementia
· To utilise your core speech and language therapy skills to provide high quality speech and language therapy interventions to older people with a mental illness, and to older persons with dementia.
· To work as a member of a multi-disciplinary team offering a comprehensive service to service users who require specialist mental health interventions.
* To participate in the ongoing development and maintenance of quality services, managing complex care directly, and indirectly eg training staff in strategies to support communication and/or safer swallowing.
* To participate in the education and supervision of a range of students.
* To maintain clear links with your speech and language therapy structures, Lead SLT and your AHP lead within the Trust.
* Support the speech and language therapy team development, promoting SLT role within multidisciplinary team and alerting managers to areas of SLT need and service development
* Adherence to RCSLT speech and language therapy standards and codes of practice.
Working for our organisation
Mersey Care is one of the largest trusts providing physical health and mental health services in the North West, serving more than 1.4 million people across our region and are also commissioned for services that cover the North West, North Wales and the Midlands.
We offer specialist inpatient and community services that support physical and mental health and specialist inpatient mental health, learning disability, addiction and brain injury services. Mersey Care is one of only three trusts in the UK that offer high secure mental health facilities.
At the heart of all we do is our commitment to ‘perfect care’ – care that is safe, effective, positively experienced, timely, equitable and efficient. We support our staff to do the best job they can and work alongside service users, their families, and carers to design and develop future services together. We’re currently delivering a programme of organisational and service transformation to significantly improve the quality of the services we provide and safely reduce cost as we do so.
Flexible working requests will be considered for all roles.
Detailed job description and main responsibilities
To participate as a Specialist Speech and Language Therapist in a multi-disciplinary team, with specific responsibility to assess and treat adults with complex health needs.
To be responsible for the delivery of specialist assessment, diagnosis, treatment, delivery and evaluation of evidence-based Speech and Language Therapy intervention in a variety of settings including inpatient, individuals home setting, care homes or outpatient clinics for clients with
communication and swallowing disorders, such as dysphagia, dysfluency, voice, head and neck.
To act as a Care coordinator where applicable, ensuring that clients have full access to any generic services that they require.
To be responsible and accountable for their own caseload and ensure that care plans are written and reviewed regularly.
To contribute to the prioritisation of the waiting list for Speech and Language Therapy.
To complete intake assessments on behalf of the team and feedback to the multi-disciplinary team.
To work alongside and liaise with other professionals within the team, staff at day centres, residential staff and families. To provide clinical advice to these on the communication needs of clients, resolving areas of conflict as necessary.
To provide specialist knowledge on alternative and augmentative systems of communication, where appropriate. To ensure that all relevant agencies have access to all systems.
To Identify and take responsibility for allocating work and providing supervision to Speech and Language Therapy assistants.
To provide training days to staff teams around specific individual’s communication to devise strategies and management plans.
To be able to deputise on the absence of the clinical lead and ensure coordination of caseload is well managed within the team.
To be an active and enthusiastic team member by participating with service improvement activities, promoting innovation, being supportive to other team members and proactive when identifying potential issues in the service.
Person specification
Qualifications
* Accredited Speech and Language Therapy qualification (BSc)
* Registration with HCPC
* Member of the Royal College of Speech and Language Therapist (RCSLT)
* Post graduate training/qualification in Dysphagia
Experience/Knowledge
* A philosophy and approach that empowers people
* Knowledge of alternative and augmentative communication and dysphagia
* A person-centred approach to service delivery Understanding of current NHS changes
* Experience of working as part of a multi-disciplinary Team
* Experience with provision of supervision and delegation to junior members of staff
* Experience of use of outcome measures for clinical evaluation
* Basic IT Skills (Microsoft Software: Excel, World, Power Point, MS Teams)
* Driving Licence
* Direct experience of working with adults with communication and Swallowing disorders
* Experience of inter agency working
* Experience of designing and delivering training for staff groups
* Experience of using iPads and other forms of technology to support communication
* Experience of facilitating groups
Skills
* A demonstrated understanding of Equality and Human Rights
* Ability to convey information and skills to direct care staff
* Good time management and organizational skills
* Flexible approach skills towards service change, demands and pressure
* Experience of providing clinical supervision (to students or SaLT staff)
Values
* Accountability
* Support
* High professional standards
* Responsive to service users
* Engaging leadership style
* Transparency and honesty
* Discreet
* Change oriented
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Please ensure you check the email account from which you apply for all correspondence. All information regarding your application will come from apps.trac.jobs not NHS Jobs.
Only those applicants who demonstrate clearly how they meet our person specification will be shortlisted for interview.
As a Disability Confident Employer, we offer a guaranteed interview scheme for applicants who consider themselves to be disabled who meet the minimum (essential) criteria for the role in the person specification. If you would like your application to be considered under the Trust’s guaranteed interview scheme you can indicate this in the personal information section of your online application form.
Should you require a reasonable adjustment to our recruitment process please email recruitment@merseycare.nhs.uk to ensure that measures can be put in place to support you.
We reserve the right to close any vacancies from further applications when we have received a minimum number of applications from which to make a shortlist. Please ensure you apply without delay if you wish to be considered for this role.
The Trust expects all post holders who require an enhanced DBS for their role subscribe to the DBS Update Service. You will be required to enrol for this service for a fee of £16 per year and maintain registration. Trans applicants who require a DBS check and do not want to reveal details of their previous identity can contact the DBS Sensitive Applications Team (01516761452 or email sensitive@dbs.gsi.gov.uk ) with their application number once they have completed their DBS application form. The team can prevent any previous identity showing on the DBS Certificate, unless the applicant has a conviction under their previous details in which case this will need to be disclosed.
Applicants requiring sponsorship may wish to determine the likelihood of obtaining sponsorship for this position by assessing themselves against the criteria on the gov.uk website - https://www.gov.uk/check-uk-visa.
Flexible working requests will be considered for all roles.
Please be advised that the use of Artificial Intelligence on applications is monitored and if you choose to use this, you must declare this on your application form.
Please note: new entrants to the NHS will commence on the first pay point of the relevant band.
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Employer certification / accreditation badges
You must have appropriate UK professional registration.
This post is subject to the Rehabilitation of Offenders Act 1974 (Exceptions) Order 1975 (Amendment) (England and Wales) Order 2020 and it will be necessary for a submission for Disclosure to be made to the Disclosure and Barring Service.
Name Lauren McAlpine Job title Highly Specialist Speech and Language Therapist Email address Lauren.McAlpine@merseycare.nhs.uk Telephone number 0151 2506125
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