Social Worker

455 North London NHS Foundation Trust

The closing date is 18 May 2025

Job summary

The Eating Disorders inpatient unit based at St Ann's Hospital, provides a comprehensive specialist inpatient service to the north central and north east London. The service is also a national provider of specialist eating disorder inpatient treatment. The inpatient unit is part of range of eating disorder services the Trust provides and is aimed at patients over the age of 18 years old with a primary diagnosis of anorexia nervosa.

The post holder will take a lead in ensuring that social care needs are identified on admission and form a central part of the care plan. They will provide training, support and consultation to colleagues as well as ensuring that services are identified and in place to meet those identified social care needs upon discharge.

The post holder will take a lead in liaising with secondary care teams that hold responsibility for delivering the social care needs on discharge and ensure that services are in place to prevent delayed discharges occurring. The post holder will also take a lead on the Transforming Care agenda with patients who have a comorbid learning disability.

Main duties of the job

Conduct triage and comprehensive social work assessments to inform recommendations and implement care pathways.
Prepare accurate reports post-assessment in line with quality standards.
Make social care judgments as situations evolve. High interpersonal skills are essential for managing complex, conflicting needs.
Facilitate signposting/referrals and interventions in collaboration with relevant agencies, utilizing local service knowledge.
Represent the team in strategic management of high-risk patients by attending clinical reviews and case conferences.
Oversee patients, carers, and resources to aid the multidisciplinary team in care plans and risk management.
Maintain professional practice in therapeutic interventions, including individual and group therapies.
Plan, implement, and evaluate social work interventions considering patient and community risk.
Provide specialist consultation to carers and others involved in patient care. Liaise with health/social service providers, manage time and resources to ensure high-quality care, and maintain confidential patient records. Provide accurate reports and statistics as instructed.
Make appropriate referrals, liaise with inpatient/outpatient services, and assist clients under locality mental health teams.
Promote mental health and community initiatives, raise awareness of eating disorders/mental health issues, and ensure services are culturally sensitive. Offer expert advice based on research evidence.

About us

North London NHS Foundation Trust (NLFT) is committed to improving mental health care across North London to deliver excellent services to our local people.Our Five-Year Strategy:

We will provide consistently high-quality care closer to home.
With our partners in North London and each borough we will ensure equity of outcome for all
We will offer great places to work, providing staff with supportive environment to deliver outstanding care.
We will be more effective as an organisation by pioneering research, quality improvement and technology.

Why NLFT?

We develop and retain our staff through leadership behaviours and managers programme and many more opportunities.
We promote flexible working and support staff with a range of health and wellbeing initiatives.
NHS Discounts, generous annual leave and NHS pension scheme
Excellent internal staff network

The post holder will be aligned with our Values:

We Are Kind
We Are Respectful
We Work Together
We Keep Things Simple
We Empower
We Are Proudly Diverse

In order to meet the needs of the Trust you may be required from time to time to work at different locations to your normal place of work. This may mean that you are required to work at any location that fall under Barnet, Camden, Enfield, Haringey or Islington. The Trust reserves the right to require staff to work at such other places or locations as it considers reasonable and necessary on a temporary or permanent basis.

Date posted

02 May 2025

Pay scheme

Agenda for change

Band

Band 6

Salary

£42,939 to £50,697 a year pa

Contract

Permanent

Working pattern

Full-time

Reference number

455-NLFT-0019

Job locations

St Anns Hospital

St Anns Road

London

N15 3TH

Job description

Job responsibilities

Detailed job description and main responsibilities

To work closely with community mental health and social care teams to plan for care packages and residential support, including completing funding paperwork and, where needed, Care Act assessments and presenting or co-presenting cases to the funding panel.

To follow up on matters relating to referrals, care packages and residential support once patients have been discharged from the ward.

To liaise with the North London Collaborative Case Manager regarding complex case management and funding issues.

To alternate between chairing and minuting community meetings on the ward.

To complete Social Circumstances Reports and present them at Mental Health Tribunals and Managers Hearings.

To liaise with AMHP services regarding Mental Health Act assessments, arranging for them to attend the ward, coordinating the assessments on the day, and providing information to the AMHPs to support their assessments.

To set up CTR meetings for patients who are autistic or have learning disabilities, ensuring that all relevant information and documentation is provided to the panel.

To carry out Mental Capacity Act assessments.

To advise colleagues, including from the Outpatient Service and from the Day Programme, on housing, benefits, safeguarding and other matters relating to social care needs.

To attend safeguarding meetings in relation to adults and children, providing an expert opinion on levels of risk.

To deliver difficult news regarding care to patients and their families, including talks on substance use, decisions regarding leave and serving CTO recall papers.

To provide professional letters regarding inpatients to external services, including the DWP, local authorities, universities and the Home Office.

To plan and run therapeutic groups.

To act as the safeguarding champion for the ward, investigating concerns, completing relevant documentation and referral and liaising with the Trusts safeguarding team.

Job description

Job responsibilities

Detailed job description and main responsibilities

To follow up on matters relating to referrals, care packages and residential support once patients have been discharged from the ward.

To liaise with the North London Collaborative Case Manager regarding complex case management and funding issues.

To alternate between chairing and minuting community meetings on the ward.

To complete Social Circumstances Reports and present them at Mental Health Tribunals and Managers Hearings.

To set up CTR meetings for patients who are autistic or have learning disabilities, ensuring that all relevant information and documentation is provided to the panel.

To carry out Mental Capacity Act assessments.

To advise colleagues, including from the Outpatient Service and from the Day Programme, on housing, benefits, safeguarding and other matters relating to social care needs.

To attend safeguarding meetings in relation to adults and children, providing an expert opinion on levels of risk.

To deliver difficult news regarding care to patients and their families, including talks on substance use, decisions regarding leave and serving CTO recall papers.

To provide professional letters regarding inpatients to external services, including the DWP, local authorities, universities and the Home Office.

To plan and run therapeutic groups.

To act as the safeguarding champion for the ward, investigating concerns, completing relevant documentation and referral and liaising with the Trusts safeguarding team.

Person Specification

Qualifications

Essential

oRegistration with HCPC oHigh level knowledge of the theory and practice in social care

Desirable

Masters in Social Work

Skills/ Abilities

Essential

oWell-developed skills in the ability to communicate effectively, orally and in writing, complex, highly technical and/or clinically sensitive information to clients, their families, carers, and other professional colleagues both within and outside the NHS. oThe ability to provide consultation to other professional and non-professional groups. oAble to contain, explore and formulate an understanding of high levels of distress both directly with patients and indirectly via supervision or case reviews with other staff.

Desirable

Working with patients with eating disorders Working with patients with learning disabilities Knowledge of Transforming Care Good knowledge of the complications of eating disorders.

Experience/ Knowledge

Essential

oExperience of social work/care assessment and treatment of clients across the full range of care settings, including outpatient, community, primary care, and inpatient settings. oExperience of working with a wide variety of client groups, across the whole life course presenting problems that reflect the full range of clinical severity including maintaining a high degree of professionalism in the face of highly emotive and distressing problems, verbal abuse, and the threat of physical abuse. oExperience of facilitating groups. oExperience of teaching, training and/or providing supervision for others

Desirable

Able to contain, explore and formulate an understanding of high levels of distress both directly with patients and indirectly via supervision or case reviews with other staff.

Person Specification

Qualifications

Essential

oRegistration with HCPC oHigh level knowledge of the theory and practice in social care

Desirable

Masters in Social Work

Skills/ Abilities

Essential

oWell-developed skills in the ability to communicate effectively, orally and in writing, complex, highly technical and/or clinically sensitive information to clients, their families, carers, and other professional colleagues both within and outside the NHS. oThe ability to provide consultation to other professional and non-professional groups. oAble to contain, explore and formulate an understanding of high levels of distress both directly with patients and indirectly via supervision or case reviews with other staff.

Desirable

Working with patients with eating disorders Working with patients with learning disabilities Knowledge of Transforming Care Good knowledge of the complications of eating disorders.

Experience/ Knowledge

Essential

oExperience of social work/care assessment and treatment of clients across the full range of care settings, including outpatient, community, primary care, and inpatient settings. oExperience of working with a wide variety of client groups, across the whole life course presenting problems that reflect the full range of clinical severity including maintaining a high degree of professionalism in the face of highly emotive and distressing problems, verbal abuse, and the threat of physical abuse. oExperience of facilitating groups. oExperience of teaching, training and/or providing supervision for others

Desirable

Able to contain, explore and formulate an understanding of high levels of distress both directly with patients and indirectly via supervision or case reviews with other staff.

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.

Certificate of Sponsorship

Applications from job seekers who require current Skilled worker sponsorship to work in the UK are welcome and will be considered alongside all other applications. For further information visit the UK Visas and Immigration website (Opens in a new tab).

From 6 April 2017, skilled worker applicants, applying for entry clearance into the UK, have had to present a criminal record certificate from each country they have resided continuously or cumulatively for 12 months or more in the past 10 years. Adult dependants (over 18 years old) are also subject to this requirement. Guidance can be found here Criminal records checks for overseas applicants (Opens in a new tab).