Senior Mental Health Practitioner
Closing date: 22 June 2026.
Please refer to the attached job description and person specification for full details of responsibilities.
The Crisis Resolution and Home Treatment Team for older adults is a well‑established, friendly and supportive multi‑disciplinary team based at Cavell Centre, Peterborough. The team offers intensive support and treatment at home, and in care homes, for older adults with mental health challenges, including the behavioural and psychological symptoms of dementia. The service we offer includes crisis intervention, intensive treatment, support, risk assessment and management to prevent unnecessary hospital admissions and facilitate earlier discharge from mental health hospital. Dementia Intensive Support offers a practical and psycho‑educational approach to care within patients’ homes and care homes.
Attributes we’re looking for
- Passion for working with older people.
- Desire to develop and enhance existing skills and knowledge.
- Drive and motivation whilst working under pressure in a very busy team.
- Experience in carrying out clinical assessment including robust risk assessments.
- Strong team‑player with a great sense of humour.
- Motivated by a desire to make a difference.
- Able to contribute to team meetings and offer a lead role within the teams.
Main duties of the job
- The post holder will work within the Crisis Resolution and Home Treatment Team for older people to provide a mental health service seven days a week, within a community setting, by providing a psychosocial assessment to those who present with a range of mental health problems.
- To work in partnership with service users and carers to provide treatment within the least restrictive environment.
- To take on the role of care coordinator for clients and provide leadership support to others, to ensure that full assessment of individual care needs are undertaken, that care is planned, implemented and reviewed on a regular basis.
- To provide assessment to those at risk of being admitted to hospital and provide care, support and treatment within a community setting or facilitate admission to hospital and promote rapid discharge.
- To provide clinical risk and mental health assessment, formulation and short‑term contingency planning for people presenting in mental health crisis.
- To act as a role model and promote effective teamwork across the service to meet individual client needs.
- To provide a crisis and home treatment service to patients, which incorporates dementia intensive support.
About us
Cambridgeshire and Peterborough NHS Foundation Trust is a health and social care organisation dedicated to providing high quality care with compassion to improve the health and wellbeing of the people we care for, as well as supporting and empowering them to lead fulfilling lives.
Our clinical teams deliver a wide range of NHS services across inpatient, primary care and community settings, including children’s, adult and older people’s mental health, forensic and specialist mental health, learning disabilities, primary care and liaison psychiatry, substance misuse, social care, and research and development.
As an equal opportunities employer, we welcome applications from all sections of the community, particularly underrepresented groups. All appointments for new employees to CPFT are subject to the successful completion of a probationary period. We reserve the right to close adverts early if we receive sufficient applications. Unfortunately, we cannot offer sponsorship for all roles.
Job responsibilities
- Screen referral to the service and prioritise referrals effectively and safely.
- Provide holistic psychosocial assessment, and subsequent planning and implementation of individual packages of care and treatment.
- Undertake clinical risk assessments, based on latest empirical evidence and compliant with local policies and procedures.
- Undertake risk management; practising safely and accordingly to individual service user needs.
- Provide evidence based clinical interventions, making autonomous clinical decisions about own professional practice.
- Responsibility for the development, planning and implementation of brief care and treatment interventions for individual patients.
- Ensure that individual episodes of care are delivered in a timely, effective, and integrated manner.
- Promote a recovery model that empowers patients, carers and relatives to be at the forefront of decision making and ownership of their packages of care and treatment.
Physical Requirements
Ability to travel independently around Cambridgeshire and Peterborough area meeting required timescales. A full driving licence and access to a vehicle is essential.
Person Specification
Education / Qualifications
- Mental Health Nurse, Social Work or Occupational Therapy qualification.
- Teaching (clinical practice) qualification/certificate or equivalent experience.
Experience
- Mental health care/treatment relevant to service.
- Working with people presenting with complex mental health needs.
- Experience of working as part of a team.
- Experience of developing service user and carer involvement.
- Experience relating to specialism.
- Teaching, training and/or supervision of clinical staff.
Knowledge and skills
- Assessing, formulating, and working with people presenting in heightened state of distress.
- Clinical risk assessment and contingency planning.
- Communicating (oral and written) complex/highly technical and clinically sensitive information to clients, their families, carers and other professional colleagues both within and outside the NHS.
- Evidenced based clinical interventions relevant to the service.
- Models of care and treatment relevant to working with older people.
- Sound knowledge of Mental Health Act, Care Act, Mental Capacity Act, Deprivation of Liberty, Safeguarding Act, Children’s Act, Equality Act 2010, Health & Safety Act and the Data Protection Act.
- Brief psychological interventions/strategies for managing crisis.
- Evidence of ability to develop and lead new initiatives within the clinical care environment.
- SystmOne.
- Relevant specialist clinical courses/training.
Disclosure and Barring Service Check
This post is subject to the Rehabilitation of Offenders Act (Exceptions Order) 1975 and as such it will be necessary for a submission for Disclosure to be made to the Disclosure and Barring Service (formerly known as CRB) to check for any previous criminal convictions.
Cambridgeshire and Peterborough NHS Foundation Trust
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