Senior Occupational Therapy in Learning Disability

Norfolk and Suffolk NHS Foundation Trust provides child and adult mental health services, learning disability, wellbeing, older people's and eating disorder services across Norfolk and Suffolk.

At any one time, around 23,000 people in Norfolk and Suffolk are receiving care and attention from the Trust. We believe in whole life care - seeing people in the context of their whole lives, understanding the importance of good physical health, friends, family, spirituality, culture, home, work, education and a sense of purpose and achievement to experience good mental health.

Nearly 3,200 full and part-time practitioners care for our service users in hospitals, in the community and in their own homes, whilst an additional 900+ staff provide non-clinical support, including cleaning, delivering supplies, ward administration, information technology, human resources and financial services.

We are committed to delivering quality driven mental health services. Every individual makes a valuable contribution. We are proud of our staff who have been commended for the care they provide. Do you value working positively, respectfully and together? If so, we’d love you to join us

**JOB DESCRIPTION/PERSON SPECIFICATION

YOUR APPLICATION

**Job overview**:
Are you an OT who would want to be part of improving occupational outcomes for people with a learning disability? Would you like to be part of a progressive and passionate team working closely within a Learning Disability and Autism Specialist Pathway and alongside mainstream services to improve the quality of life of our service users?

Then we have an exciting opportunity in our Learning Disability Acute Service in Suffolk for an Occupational Therapist who has the experience of working with Learning Disability or has the passion to try it. We are looking for a Band 6 Occupational Therapist who has enthusiasm to drive change and a good knowledge base on the holistic needs of people with a learning disability.

**Main duties of the job**:
We are looking for an enthusiastic, proactive and innovative individual with the ability to join our acute service for Learning Disability. You will work across the Intensive Support Team and Inpatient Service, providing OT assessment and interventions to support the team to identify the impact of learning disability on the individual’s life and to support the team and the individual in ways that improve that person’s quality of life.

The Intensive Support Team (IST) work with individuals and their care givers in the community to prevent care provision breakdown and hence prevent admission to hospital. For those people who do need to be admitted, IST continue working with the individual as part of the treatment programme and are then lead the transition back into the community. It is a wonderfully rewarding role where we see excellent outcomes and just need you to join to be part of it

**Working for our organisation**:
The way we care for people with Learning Disabilities in Suffolk is changing at NSFT as we have recently benefitted from £1.3 million of investment for our Acute services and the role out of a new Learning Disability and Autism Specialist Service.

The development is fully driven by the national Transforming Care Agenda.The Learning Disability and Autism Specialist Service is not only being invested in financially, with a fresh approach to ideas and service delivery being supported by the Trust, we are confident our new model of care is the very best for the people we care for.

We have a culture of continued learning, working as a close LD specialist pathway with each team having monthly protected days which includes a variety of training, reflection, supervision and service development. The entire pathway is focused on the further development of high-quality care in line with NHS LD standards alongside our colleagues in mainstream services.

**Detailed job description and main responsibilities**:
This is a particularly interesting role whereby you be influential in both acute and community care for individuals so you can follow them along their journey. You will be responsible for direct assessment and treatment of individuals but also for the dissemination of the OT model, including training staff in brief sensory assessment and interventions and also Positive Behaviour Support (PBS) Plans. You will work alongside psychology, behaviour nurse speciality, psychiatry, SALT, Art therapy and nursing colleagues to provide an all-round service with our clients in the centre of their own care and will directly support an Activity Co-ordinator to provide a service that fits the specific models of care.

You will need excellent communication and liaison skills in order to engage and collaborate with service users, families, colleagues and a range of professionals. and you can gain skills in Makaton and PBS as part of the induction and on-going learning in role.

Here at NSFT we pride ourselves on being a welcoming, tale