Mental Health Risk and Referrals Manager

Job summary

Calling Mental Health Nurses (RMNs), Occupational Therapists, Psychological Therapists and other mental health professionals with experience of primary and secondary mental health care! This is an exciting role overseeing and working with a duty team, focused on supporting patients to access primary care services safely.

NHS West Sussex Talking Therapies (previously known as IAPT) is nationally recognised as a high performing talking therapies service, with a reputation for clinical excellence, innovation and collaborative working with secondary care and voluntary services. We provide a range of NICE compliant psychological therapies for people experiencing mild to moderate mental health difficulties, and achieve excellent recovery outcomes for our patients. We have good staff retention and aim to grow inclusive staff teams where diversity is valued and the workforce reflects the communities served.

We are excited to announce we are looking for a further Mental Health Risk and Referrals Manager to complement our current team of two and work alongside the Clinical Leadership team.

We are collaborative in the way we work, encouraging everyone to contribute ideas and suggestions for continual improvement, and have made creative adaptations to our Duty system in response to our Mental Health Risk and Referral Managers' feedback.

Main duties of the job

The management of screening relevant self and professional referrals is carried out by a team of Duty Workers. You will provide duty cover when needed, work alongside the Clinical Leadership team, and existing Duty and be responsible for the organisation and delivery of the established NHS West Sussex Talking Therapies duty rota. The system provides advice and support to our staff (CBT Therapists/Counsellors, Psychological Wellbeing Practitioners (PWPs) and our Administrative Team) about all aspects of clinical risk, supporting robust risk management and safeguarding processes across the service.

The Mental Health Risk and Referral Manager will have substantial client contact by telephone, often talking with people who may be distressed, to help screen client suitability for the service and make referrals where appropriate into secondary mental health services. You will manage the interface between NHS West Sussex Talking Therapies and secondary mental health care services.

We have bases in Burgess Hill, Haywards Heath, Crawley and Horsham and are open to discussing the applicant's base preference. You will report to the Deputy Clinical Lead and engage with the new West Sussex Triage Hub, an exciting new multi-agency approach to management of referrals to services, using the Community Mental Health Framework for Adults and Older Adults' "No wrong front door" approach.

About us

We are the main provider of NHS community services across East and West Sussex, with 6,000 staff serving 1.3 million people. We deliver essential care to adults and children, helping them manage their health, avoid hospital admissions, and reduce hospital stays.

Our Trust vision is to provide excellent care at the heart of the community. We offer opportunities across medical, clinical, support, and corporate services.

Why work for us?o Positive 2023 NHS Staff Survey results, highlighting compassionate leadership and wellbeingo Varied environments: community hospitals, patients' homes, and bases across Sussexo Flexible working options: part-time, flexi-time, annualised hours, and flexi-retiremento Excellent training, development, and research opportunitieso Cost-effective workplace nurseries in Crawley, Hove, and Brightono Active EMBRACE, Disability & Wellbeing, LGBTQIA+, and Religion & Belief networkso Level 3 Disability Confident Leader and Veteran Aware Trusto Beautiful Sussex location near the South Downs and coast

Our values--Compassionate Care, Working Together, Achieving Ambitions, Delivering Excellence--guide everything we do.

We embrace diversity and encourage applications from all backgrounds, particularly from ethnically diverse, disabled, and LGBTQIA+ individuals. We aim to create an inclusive environment and support reasonable adjustments during recruitment.

This post may close early if sufficient applications are received.