Senior Occupational Therapist in Stroke and Neurology

Job overview

Due to maternity leave within the team, an exciting opportunity has arisen to work within the stroke and neuro occupational therapy team.

Working as part of a specialist multi-disciplinary team, you will provide a high standard of occupational therapy input to patients with a variety of neurological and complex conditions.

Our service is committed to providing a 7 day service for our patients. Our team leads design the rotas in collaboration with staff to ensure that a fair and flexible approach in allocating shifts is applied.

• Hyper-acute Stroke Care
• Acute Stroke
• Neurological Outliers

You will be supported in this role by a strong multidisciplinary team and work in close collaboration with a friendly and innovative therapies department. Supervising junior members of the team is included within this role therefore prior experience is needed.

Main duties of the job

1. To be professionally and legally accountable for all aspects of own work, including the management of patients in your care.
2. To undertake a comprehensive holistic assessment of patients including those with diverse or complex presentations/multi pathologies.
3. To deliver appropriate individual evidence based occupational therapy treatment programme for all patients, including patients with complex presentations.
4. To formulate accurate prognoses and recommend best course of intervention, developing comprehensive discharge plans.
5. To assess patient understanding of treatment proposals, gain valid informed consent and have the capacity to work within a legal framework with patients who lack capacity to consent to treatment.
6. To have a good working knowledge of the multidisciplinary team (MDT) and follow-up rehabilitation and treatment services. To work as an effective member of the MDT and make appropriate and timely referrals to MDT colleagues.
7. To liaise effectively with MDT members to formulate holistic, integrated plans of treatment.
8. To be responsible for maintaining accurate and comprehensive written patient assessment and treatment records and any other documentation required, in line with professional and Trust standards.

Working for our organisation

The Trust continues to be committed to delivering the best patient care using the best clinical knowledge and technology.

Our Values

We not only recruit based on qualifications and experience - we recruit individuals who demonstrate the behaviours which underpin our Trusts core values. We achieve this by using values based recruitment. We are dedicated to making our recruitment practices as inclusive as possible for everyone, we are committed to promoting equality and diversity, and creating a culture that values differences.

Please review all documents attached to ensure you familiarize yourself with all requirements of the job.

1. To maintain and develop current knowledge of evidenced-based practice in the areas of rehabilitation and neurology, developing specialist knowledge.
2. To design, develop and undertake an evidence-based project as agreed with the specialist occupational therapist within the rehabilitation and neurology team and develop improvements to service delivery and clinical practice. Make recommendations for change to the specialist occupational therapist.
3. To participate in the staff appraisal scheme as an appraisee and be responsible for complying with your agreed personal development programmes to meet knowledge requirements and competencies.
4. To respect the individuality, values, culture and religious diversity of patients and contribute to the provision of the service sensitive to these needs
5. To demonstrate ongoing personal development through participation in internal and external development opportunities and maintain a portfolio which reflects personal development.
6. To appraise delegated section staff to ensure all section staff have a current PDP and appraisal objectives and facilitate the successful completion of these

Person specification

Qualifications

• Dip COT or BSc (Hons) in OT
• HCPC registration
• Evidence of CPD maintained in a portfolio including attendances at recent post graduate courses/ in-service trainings relevant to the speciality

• Practice Educators Certificate

Experience

• Broad based postgraduate experience to include experience in neurology, stroke or rehabilitation
• Experience working within an acute hospital environment
• Experience of supervision of staff or students including staff appraisal
• Work experience, student or therapy assistant supervision
• Teaching/training groups or individuals

• Involvement in service improvement via project management or clinical audit
• Involvement in specialist interests groups

Knowledge

• Remain updated with professional practice and new research

communication

• Excellent verbal and non verbal communication skills

skills

• Competent IT skills
• Effective time management skills
• Ability to work to deadlines and under pressure
• Ability to organise, prioritise and delegate appropriately

It is an exciting time to join the newly formed Bedfordshire Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust. We run two busy hospital sites in Bedford and Luton. Our 7,500 staff provide high quality care for a growing population of around 700,000 across Bedfordshire and the surrounding areas.

Travel between hospital sites may be required. We have state-of-the art facilities placing us at the heart of cutting edge health care. The Trust continues to be committed to delivering the best patient care using the best clinical knowledge and technology available.

All new staff will be subject to a probationary period covering their first six months in post.