Mental Health Practitioner

The post holder will be required to support the delivery of care currently in the form of New Models of Care, enabling the service to meet the London Wide service specification standards for Prison Healthcare.

The post holder will work to ensure they are offering a high standard and an integrated triage, assessment and intervention to individuals within our prison settings who are presenting with mental health problems in line with the New Models of Care.

The post-holder will be a resource to staff across healthcare and the wider prison establishment, providing specialist advice to healthcare colleagues, particularly GPs in the assessment, planning and treatment of patients on the prison residential wings.

An important focus of the work will involve embracing a recovery and enablement model which re-integrates prisoners with mental health problems with their local community-based mental health service upon release from prison. Additionally, the post holder will be required to facilitate the transfer of mentally ill prisoners to and from NHS hospitals.

To work as a member of the Mental Health Service at HMP Pentonville.

To work across the service functions including early days in custody, planned care, crisis care and release and transfer.

To provide skilled assessments of patients’ emotional and psychological needs based upon the understanding, interpretation and integration of complex data given by the patient and obtained from other sources.

To provide psychosocial interventions for patients with moderate to complex mental health difficulties.

To complete clinical risk assessments at first and subsequent assessment interview and accurately record and report key risks

To review and evaluate treatment plans at agreed intervals in collaboration with the patient and members of the multidisciplinary team

To act as CPA coordinator, where appropriate, taking responsibility for initiating planning and review of care plans under enhanced CPA including patients, their carers, referring agents and others involved in the network of care in consultation with the MDT.

To provide crisis assessments, co-produce crisis plans and provide interventions to resolve crises, working with the MDT, wider healthcare service, prison and the service user’s support network.

To provide care, custody and administration of medication in accordance with the Trust’s policies and the NMC Code of Practice.

Barnet, Enfield and Haringey Mental Health NHS Trust is responsible for providing mental health services for people of all ages across the London Boroughs of Barnet, Enfield and Haringey, as well as providing some specialist services across the whole of North London and beyond. Since January 2011, the Trust also provides adult and children’s community health services in Enfield, following the transfer of Enfield Community Services from NHS Enfield.

North London Forensic Service (NLFS) has been rated as OUTSTANDING again by the Care Quality Commission, and part of this is our dedicated and skilled staff team who have a number of development opportunities open to them across a varied number of innovative services within the criminal justice pathway.

We are excited that our prison services are transforming in partnership with other healthcare providers across our BEH London Prisons and are looking for candidates who are interested in working in prison mental health to come and work with us in our Mental Health Hub.

• Please refer to the attached Job description and Person Specification for main responsibilities of the role.