Specialist Speech & Language Therapist
The closing date is 14 April 2026
Job summary
This post offers an exciting opportunity for a skilled and enthusiastic clinician to join our Speech & Language Therapy team on a fixed term basis. We are seeking a therapist who is passionate about delivering quality services for this population, and who has experience of working with people with complex communication needs. This countywide Learning Disability service is part of the East Suffolk Speech and Language Therapy team, facilitating an integrative model of support and specialism across other areas of speech and language therapy. This includes provision of videofluoroscopy and FEES.
As part of our friendly and innovative integrated SLT service, this specialist SLT team currently provides communication and dysphagia services across Suffolk community, as well as supporting the adult autism diagnostic service. We also deliver the SLT services within the local mental health LD multidisciplinary teams and the local specialist communication aid service. Our integrated model and extensive MDT working requires someone who is a strong team player, comfortable with working independently at times and skilled at building and maintaining relationships with colleagues across professions and organisations.
If you are looking to broaden your clinical skills or if you enjoy working with a range of clinical presentations, this job will give you this experience, and we encourage our team to work closely with the paediatric, adult acquired and acute services.
Main duties of the job
You will support individuals with communication and swallowing difficulties, including those with complex needs. You will have the opportunity to work with people who require our support in critical care and high dependency areas, including those with tracheostomy.You will work with a multi-disciplinary team to support tracheostomy weaning, communication and swallowing difficulties for these patients. If this is a new area for you, support will be available from within the team to help with your development in this area.
You will have the opportunity to contribute to our instrumental assessment provision, including videofluoroscopy and FEES. (Training can be provided in gaining videofluoroscopy and FEES competencies, according to service need.)
You will supervise and line manage staff, and work with other lead clinicians to manage the operational delivery of the service to inpatients. You will be part of a senior SLT team, and will support the oversight of quality, workforce, education and training, and service improvement.
About us
We are ESNEFT and we provide hospital and community health services to almost one million people across east Suffolk and north Essex. Our dedicated staff deliver care from acute hospitals in Colchester and Ipswich, community hospitals, surgeries, community clinics and in patients' own homes.
We are one of the largest NHS organisations in England, employing more than 12,000 staff.
We pride ourselves on supporting our staff. We offer a wide range of training and development opportunities, as well as flexible working options.
Along with supporting you to achieve your career goals we offer a generous pension scheme, unsocial hours payments (where applicable), 27 days annual leave on commencement (pro rata) and access to a range of NHS discounts. Our Staff Health and Wellbeing programme offer a variety of services.
Our philosophy is that Time Matters to everyone. Across the Trust, we concentrate on improving the things we do and removing those which cause time delays for our staff and patients.
We are investing in our commitment to Time Matters with a partnership with leading electronic patient record (EPR) supplier Epic. This digital transformation will bring what's widely regarded as the world's best EPR system to ESNEFT, transforming life in hospital for staff and patients.
If you are passionate about patient care and want to develop your skills and knowledge, then we want to hear from you.
Find out about living and working here - www.youtube.com/watch?v=GkPu7HphU8A
Details
Date posted
31 March 2026
Pay scheme
Agenda for change
Band
Band 7
Salary
£47,810 to £54,710 a year per annum pro rata
Contract
Fixed term
Duration
12 months
Working pattern
Full-time, Part-time
Reference number
432-HR1473-25
Job locations
Ipswich Hospital
Heath Road
Ipswich
IP4 5PD
Employer details
Employer name
East Suffolk and North Essex NHS Foundation Trust
Address
Ipswich Hospital
Heath Road
Ipswich
IP4 5PD
Employer's website
https://www.esneft.nhs.uk/ (Opens in a new tab)
Employer contact details
For questions about the job, contact:
Supporting documents
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