Job summary
Join our West Kent Liaison Psychiatry Service as a Senior LiaisonPsychiatry Practitioner at Tunbridge WellsHospital. This dynamic role offers a fantastic opportunity to provide vital hospital-based mental health care within a fast-paced, multidisciplinary environment.

You'll be responsible for urgent and routine referrals, complex assessments, and managing diverse mental health needs in a general hospital setting. A key part of the role involves teaching and supporting acute hospital colleagues to enhance their mental health understanding and promote holistic care. You'll also ensure service targets and quality standards are met, utilising IT systems for documentation.

We're seeking a proactive, collaborative individual committed to quality improvement, who embodies patient-centred care, compassion, empathy, respect, and dignity. If you're passionate about making a difference in the lives of individuals experiencing mental health challenges, we encourage you to apply.

Main duties of the job

• As a crucial Liaison Psychiatry team member, you'll combine expert clinical practice with leadership.
• You'll assess and respond to acute hospital referrals, adhering to CORE24 standards (1-hour triage, 4-hour full assessment).
• Your responsibilities include comprehensive biopsychosocial assessments for various mental health conditions.
• You'll manage complex caseloads of clients with co-morbid physical and mental illnesses.
• Expert risk assessment and management, including safeguarding processes, are essential.
• You'll also address situations where social needs outweigh mental or physical health needs, coordinating care plans.
• A key aspect is providing specialist assessment and intervention for adults (18+) with co-morbid illness.
• You'll act as an educational resource, offering training, and advice to acute hospital staff and liaison psychiatry colleagues on mental health crises in all age groups
• You'll foster close working relationships with acute hospital teams and Kent and Medway Partnership Trust.
• You'll provide clinical supervision for Band 6 practitioners and support their development.
• You'll also assist in leading change processes for LPS accreditation and CORE24 service delivery
• You'll lead in a specific clinical area (e.g., neurodiversity, substance misuse, dementia/delirium, self-harm)
• You'll develop clinical audit initiatives, lead on service improvements for users and carers (increasing PREM & CREM completion), and conduct clinical inductions for new clinicians

About us
We are the Kent and Medway Mental Health NHS Trust. We care for the mental health and wellbeing of people across Kent and Medway.

Our teams support adults with a wide range of mental health needs. Because we cover the whole county and both hospital and community settings, we can make care more joined up and easier to access for the 1.8 million people of Kent and Medway. Rated 'Good' by the CQC, we care for over 2,000 people in our hospitals and 54,000 in the community each year.

Our vision is simple: We are here to help communities not just live with mental illness, but live well. It's why we're passionate about working with communities to make mental health care better for everyone. And everything we do is guided by our values caring, inclusive, curious and confident.

Join us - if you share our passion for better mental health care and want to be part of a team that's doing well together.

Take a look at our Community Nursing Video

Take a look at our Occupational Therapist Video

Details
Date posted: 12 August 2026
Pay scheme: Agenda for change
Band: Band 7
Salary: £49,387 to £56,515 a year per annum
Contract: Permanent
Working pattern: Full-time
Reference number: 380-WK0410
Job locations: Tunbridge Wells Hospital, Tonbridge Road, Pembury, TN24QJ, United Kingdom

Job responsibilities
Please refer to the attached job description for the full details on the responsibilities and person specification

We are serious about diversity and inclusion, and we are working hard to build this into our DNA. We warmly welcome applications for any of our roles from people from diverse backgrounds, and we are proactively encouraging applications from under-represented communities for our more senior roles, like this one.

Person Specification
Qualifications and Training
Essential

• Registered Mental Health Nurse or Occupational therapist with relevant Professional Body registration
• Post-registration therapy qualification or wish and ability to work towards this
• Educated or working towards Masters degree level via specialist modules
• Practice Supervisor qualification

Experience
Essential

• Previous experience at senior practitioner (band 6 or above)
• Working individually with people using a CBT or similar therapeutic approach
• Working in the community with people with mental health problems

Knowledge and Skills
Essential

• Sound knowledge of mental health problems particularly the impact of physical and mental illness on wellbeing
• Ability to develop and provide training packages
• Knowledge of relevant legislation

Additional requirement
Essential

• Ability to travel to different sites across the Trust in a timely manner
• Computer literate

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.

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

We are serious about diversity and inclusion, and we are working hard to build this into our DNA. We warmly welcome applications for any of our roles from people from diverse backgrounds, and we are proactively encouraging applications from under-represented communities for our more senior roles, like this one.