Job summary
We are recruiting for an Occupational Therapist (Rotational) who share our vision to be trusted to provide consistently outstanding care and exemplary service to our patients.

This post covers Acute Trust rotations at the Lister Hospital, Stevenage and includes Stroke rehabilitation, Acute Assessment unit, General Surgery and Amputees, Orthopaedics, General Medicine and Elderly care.

Within the rotations, we provide strong and established professional leadership, excellent team support and opportunities to contribute to service and clinical development. The rotations are 4.5 months in length to provide the opportunity for you to gain valuable skills in a variety of clinical areas.

You will be joining a proactive, integrated Physiotherapy and Occupational Therapy service with excellent peer and senior support. We are looking for someone with sound clinical reasoning and communication skills, as well as an ability to work within a team and to use your initiative.

We would welcome applications from experienced occupational therapists and newly qualified.

At the heart of everything we do are our core values: Include, Respect, and Improve. We encourage you to embrace these values throughout the recruitment process and in your role with us.

Main duties of the job
Within this role you will be required to assess and treat own caseload of patients and maintain own records as an autonomous practitioner with access to a senior member of staff for advice and support on a daily basis.

Communicating with relevant medical and nursing staff, social workers, and other health care professionals, patients, relatives, and carers who may be in direct contact with regards to patient care.

You will undertake comprehensive and where applicable, standardised assessments of patients looking at all Occupational Performance including self-maintenance, productivity and leisure for patients.

Undertaking assessment and treatment of patients with diverse and complex presentations/multi-pathologies with supervision.

As well as working in the hospital setting, you will also carry out accompanied home visits or unaccompanied access home visits, to assess the patient/client's functioning in their own environment and communicate with relatives and carers regarding further care and/or treatment at home.

About us
At East and North Hertfordshire NHS Trust, we are proud of the range of general & specialist services we provide & our 6,000 or so dedicated staff ensure our patients get the best care. Our ability to be flexible & innovative in the way in which we work and deliver our services to our catchment has never been more important than it is now.

We run the following hospitals:
The Lister Hospital, Stevenage
New Queen Elizabeth II (New QEII), Welwyn Garden City
Hertford County, Hertford
Mount Vernon Cancer Centre (MVCC), Northwood

We have ambitious plans to become an outstanding, patient-led Trust where dedicated staff provide high-quality, compassionate care to our patients. We continue to undergo significant transformation; our staff & patients are at the heart of delivering this ambitious agenda.

We are committed to a positive work life balance for our employees. Employees are entitled to seek to work flexible working patterns & we are committed to listen and consider all requests. Such requests, of course, have to be made & considered formally, & will need to be balanced against service needs, but our starting point will always be to find ways to support making them happen.

Job responsibilities
Please see the attached Job Description and Person Specification applicant pack for further detailed information regarding this role.

Person Specification
Previous Experience
Essential

• Knowledge of research methodologies and audit cycles
• Knowledge of Clinical Governance
• Knowledge of NICE/NSF's and application to Occupational Therapy
• Ability to maintain CPD through research, audit and training
• Knowledge of Occupational Therapy process
• Evidence of clinical reasoning
• Awareness of assessment tools, OCM's and their application to clinical area
• Knowledge of anatomy and physiology related to clinical area

Skills
Essential

• Ability to communicate complex and/or sensitive information requiring empathy and reassurance
• Knowledge of barriers to communication and strategies to overcome them
• Ability to communicate effectively with colleagues, other health professionals, patients and their relatives/carers
• Ability to present information accurately, written and oral
• Clinical problem solving ability in routine cases
• Ability to prioritise patient workload

Qualifications
Essential

• Degree/Diploma in Occupational Therapy
• HCPC registration
• Knowledge of current legislation at DOH and CCG level
• Knowledge and application of Professional Code of Conduct and Ethics

Other Requirements
Essential

• Understanding of, and commitment to, equality, diversity and inclusion
• Role model our Trust values every day
• Eligible to live and work in the UK
• Must be able to travel independently and reliably between sites within working hours to meet the operational requirements of the service

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.

Applicants must have current UK professional registration. For further information please see NHS Careers website (opens in a new window).