Specialist Speech

**Band 6 Specialist Speech and Language Therapist**: Durham - Development opportunity

We are keen to appoint a Speech and Language Therapist to join our specialist Neurodisability team. This team work within the County Durham area, providing assessment and intervention for children and young people in a range of settings.

We recognise that this is a specialist area and as such, have devised a development framework to support therapists currently working at a band 5 level, who are interested in developing into this role with structured support.

**This role will provide you with**:
a varied caseload, with a focus on children and young people with complex neurological difficulties including dysphagia.

opportunity to help develop an evidence-based pathway for clients with dysphagia and/or complex and additional needs

opportunity to work with other specialist and clinical lead therapists

opportunity to work within a range of community settings including clinics, homes and education settings

a structured programme of support and supervision

North Tees & Hartlepool NHS Foundation Trust our main priority is, and always will be, to provide safe and high quality care to our patients every day; the kind of care we would want for ourselves and our loved ones. We want our organisation to be the best place to work with the right staff, in the right roles, at the right time, to ensure we deliver exceptional patient care and experience.

We will support staff through providing an inclusive and supportive workplace with health and well-being initiatives, staff benefits and opportunities for personal and professional development. Staff recognition is very important to us; as well as performance reviews and appraisals, we recognise staff through Star and Team of the month, colleague recognition - a note of thanks, Managers Awards, Shining Stars and Service Awards.

We recruit for values and “Together we are North Tees & Hartlepool”.

1. Generate appropriate strategies to manage an individual specialist caseload including the assessment, diagnosis, treatment and discharge of a diverse range of clients with complex communication and/or swallowing difficulties with support and supervision from lead clinician.
2. Develop and implement specialist care protocols and programmes of care and treatment, to meet the needs of clients in conjunction with their parents, carers, education staff and other members of the appropriate multi-disciplinary team (MDT) with support and supervision from lead clinician.
3. Independently manage and negotiate the management of complex cases with others e.g. onward referral to highly specialist clinicians or other specialist support agencies e.g. consultants, Educational Psychologists.
4. To access support and supervision from more senior clinicians in relation to clinical duties and responsibilities.
5. To provide specialist advice to the relevant multi-disciplinary teams to contribute to the diagnosis of children with complex and additional needs.
6. To ensure clients/families are involved in the planning and prioritisation of their care plans wherever possible.
7. To adapt practice to meet individual client circumstances including regard for cultural and linguistic differences.
8. Provide specialist education, training and supervision to speech and language therapy assistant practitioners and to speech and language therapists with less experience in the management of the client group, with appropriate supervision from the clinical lead.
9. Provide specialist advice and second opinions to less experienced colleagues.
10. Continually evaluate the effectiveness of care protocols and packages of care, audit and implement changes as appropriate in conjunction with lead clinician/line manager.
11. Evaluate the effects of the communication difficulty on the psychological health of the client.
12. Work with the lead clinician to develop and coordinate service provision and policy development for the client group.
13. Contribute to the planning, implementation and evaluation of teaching and training in the specialist area to parents, carers, volunteers and professionals involved in the care of the client group with support from the lead clinician
14. Maintain contemporaneous client records, gather data, provide reports, share information and give advice and recommendations to the client/carers and other involved professionals and the Local Authority (LA), about the clients’ abilities and needs in line with professional standards, local trust policies and data protection guidelines.