Mental Health Practitioner

Are you ready to unlock your potential within a challenging, creative and fast paced work environment? Do you want to escape your current job role and work with people to build positive and productive lives, whatever their past? Now is the time to break into offender healthcare and develop your career.

As part of the South West Prison Healthcare contract awarded to Oxleas NHS trust in 2022, we are able to expand recruitment and are looking for a compassionate, knowledgeable and motivated Mental Health Nurse to join our friendly team at HMP Portland.

Our healthcare team have a real impact on promoting health and well-being to those in prison and we pride ourselves on using skills and strategies that instil hope for patients future resettlement back into the community. We directly deliver Mental Health, Physical Health, Pharmacy and Clinical Substance Misuse in an integrated healthcare delivery model to provide effective and responsive care to improve wellbeing and support better outcomes in the future.

As part of our mental health team, you will enjoy all the benefits of NHS AfC employment (inc pension) with the opportunity to work within a forward-thinking service, who encourage career and personal development to all staff to increase their clinical and interpersonal skills.

As a Mental Health Practitioner you will be providing specialist mental healthcare to offenders and working as part of the Mental Health In-Reach Team, plus wider mental health services. You will be required to work in a psychologically minded way with offenders in achieving their agreed goals and quality health outcomes.

Our Mental Health Team provide specialist interventions at primary and secondary care level including; referral management, screening assessment, triage, evidence-based interventions, care planning and risk assessing, plus one-to-one and group-work facilitation.

Our Mental Health Practitioners manage a mixed and challenging caseload and are required to perform robust assessment, screening and interventions to offenders with learning disabilities and mental health conditions. You will contribute to alternatives to inpatient admission and assisting with early discharge through the implementation of high intensity interventions and complex case management arrangements.

One of our key aims is to ensure continuity of care for an offender on ordinary location and reduce the length of stay, both in relation to prison inpatient services and external NHS/independent in-patient services. You will work closely with community mental health teams to ensure appropriate sharing of information, continuity of care and the Care Programme Approach for all offenders as necessary.

Oxleas offers a wide range of NHS healthcare services to people in community and secure environment settings. We are the largest NHS provider of prison health services providing healthcare to prisons within Devon, Dorset, Bristol, Wiltshire and Gloucestershire, Kent and South London.

Our healthcare departments operate across three prisons in the Dorset cluster each of which require a bespoke service responding to the prisoner and prison needs:
HMP Guys Marsh - Cat C - Population = 550

HMP Portland - Cat C - Population = 530

HMP The Verne - Cat C - Population = 600

Oxleas are the lead provider across 10 South West prisons and operate in Bristol, South Gloucestershire, Wiltshire and Devon in addition to the above.

Our wider services include community health care such as district nursing and speech and language therapy, care for people with learning disabilities and mental health care such as psychiatry, nursing and therapies. Our 4,300 members of staff work in many different settings including hospitals, clinics, prisons, secure hospitals, children’s centres, schools and people’s homes.

We have over 125 sites in a variety of locations in the South of England.

Our purpose is to improve lives by providing the best possible care to our patients and their families. This is strengthened by our new values:
We’re Kind

We’re Fair

We Listen

We Care

To communicate effectively on a range of issues that are often complex in their nature and in complex situations.

Participate in the annual appraisal reviews and demonstrate reflective practice through the Knowledge and Skills Framework

To maintain comprehensive and timely electronic clinical records ensuring confidentiality is maintained at all times.

Provide supervision, mentorship & leadership for junior staff.

Take all necessary care in the working environment, adhering to relevant health and safety policies.

Participate and positively contribute to the services integrated clinical governance arrangements

Carry out administrative tasks as directed including research, audit, data, and activity statistics.

**IMPORTANT INFORMATION, PLEASE READ**:
All applicants must be willing to undertake National Security Vetting in order to work in a Prison Setting. This will be completed as part of the pre-e