Occupational Therapist

Job summary

Working Full or Part time

As a Band 6 Occupational Therapist, you'll step into a dynamic, forward-thinking team where your expertise will shape patient journeys and drive service innovation. If you're motivated, enthusiastic, and ready to grow, this is the perfect environment to thrive.

Opportunities You'll Experience

• Specialist Clinical Exposure:Work with patients across diverse surgical and medical pathways -- from trauma to oncology and gastrology and general surgery -- gaining specialist expertise that will set you apart.
• Innovation in Practice:Contribute to service development projects, introducing new treatment approaches, digital tools, and patient-centred innovations.
• Leadership Development:Take on mentoring responsibilities for Band 5 OTs, Therapy Assistants, and students, building your leadership profile.
• Interdisciplinary Collaboration:Work closely with surgeons, nurses, physiotherapists, and other specialists, becoming a key voice in multidisciplinary team decisions.
• Research & Governance:Engage in clinical audits, service evaluations, and governance activities that influence trust-wide practice.
• Acute & Community Balance:Experience the fast-paced acute hospital environment while also occasionally supporting patients in community and home settings, ensuring safe discharges and continuity of care.
• Career Progression: Build the skills and portfolio needed to move into advanced practice, specialist Band 7 roles, or leadership positions.

Main duties of the job

• To work as an autonomous practitioner to perform a specialist occupational therapy assessment of patients with diverse presentations. To use clinical reasoning to provide a diagnosis and develop, deliver and adapt individualised treatment programmes.
• To implement monitoring and evaluation of treatment in order to measure progress and outcomes to ensure effectiveness of interventions and service delivery.
• To be professionally and legally accountable for all aspects of own work and that of supervised physiotherapists and assistants and hold responsibility for own caseload for a specialist area of the service, working without direct supervision.
• To provide clinical cover, as appropriate during staff absence with guidance and support of a senior member of staff if required.
• To participate in 7 day working as per service requirements, in evening and/or weekend duty rotas and/or emergency/on call rotas. To provide treatment to patients and to provide advice to medical and nursing staff and other members of the multidisciplinary team without direct supervision.
• To identify and carry out Home Visits in accordance with Trust and Professional standards and to assess patient condition and suitability for discharge and where appropriate supervise physiotherapists and assistants in these tasks.
• What We're Looking For
  • HCPC registered Occupational Therapist
  • Broad Band 5 NHS rotational experience
  • Strong organisational skills, time management, and resilience under pressure.

About us

The Countess of Chester Hospital NHS Foundation Trust provides services to West Cheshire and to Welsh patients covered by Betsi Cadwaladr University Health Board. The Trust works collaboratively within the wider Cheshire and Merseyside Health and Care Partnership. Its services are provided from three locations:

• The Countess of Chester Hospital: providing 438 general and acute beds
• Ellesmere Port Hospital: providing 56 beds as a rehabilitation, intermediate and outpatient facility
• Tarporley War Memorial Hospital: a base for community services which serve the local rural population.

The Trust employs over 5916 staff (headcount) which includes temporary bank staff and provides acute emergency and elective services, primary care direct access services and obstetric services to a population of approximately 411,000. This includes 361,000 residents in Chester and West Cheshire which includes Ellesmere Port and Neston as well as the Deeside area of Flintshire which has a population of approximately 50,000.