Mersey Care NHS Foundation Trust
Mental Health Assessment Practitioner
The closing date is 29 November 2026
Job summary
If you are passionate about improving mental health and interested in working at the forefront of an innovative, collaboration with primary and secondary mental health care then this role may well be for you.

As part of the ongoing transformation of Mental Health service provision we are looking to recruit two Primary Care Mental Health Assessment Practitioner posts based across the South Sefton, Southport and Kirkby footprint. The role will be conducting comprehensive mental health assessments in a range of mediums to suite patient need.

Main duties of the job
This role is an instrumental part of the wider community transformation programme and you will receive supervision and support from a Mersey Care Mental Health Lead covering the same geographical region as you. You will also receive day to day support from a Primary Care Mental Health Lead.

In this role, there is a requirement to be adaptable and creative. It is an exciting opportunity for innovative working across community providers to improve the quality of mental health services and address health inequalities.

About us
Mersey Care is one of the largest trusts providing physical health and mental health services in the North West, serving more than 1.4 million people across our region and are also commissioned for services that cover the North West, North Wales and the Midlands.

We offer specialist inpatient and community services that support physical and mental health and specialist inpatient mental health, learning disability, addiction and brain injury services. Mersey Care is one of only three trusts in the UK that offer high secure mental health facilities.

At the heart of all we do is our commitment to 'perfect care' - care that is safe, effective, positively experienced, timely, equitable and efficient. We support our staff to do the best job they can and work alongside service users, their families, and carers to design and develop future services together. We're currently delivering a programme of organisational and service transformation to significantly improve the quality of the services we provide and safely reduce cost as we do so.

Flexible working requests will be considered for all roles.

Details
Pay scheme: Agenda for change
Band: Band 6
Salary: £39,959 to £48,117 a year
Contract: Permanent
Working pattern: Full-time, Flexible working
Reference number: 350-MHC8356660
Location: Primary Care Mental Health Team Sefton, South Sefton Neighbourhood Centre, Waterloo, L22 3XR

Job responsibilities

• To coordinate the care of service users carrying out assessment planning, implementation and evaluation of their care under the guidelines of the care programme approach and under the supervision of the line manager.
• To liaise with family members, carers and significant others when completing the assessment where relevant.
• To undertake and supervise risk assessments and formulation of risk management plan for service users under your care, taking note of the contributions from other members of the team, family members carers and significant others.
• To ensure Safeguarding Children and Adults requirements are followed and participate in meetings as appropriate.
• To participate in setting standards for care based on sound evidence based and research findings.
• To participate in the systematic monitoring and evaluation of service users that you have responsibility for.
• To communicate to other members of the multi-disciplinary team information which has an impact on the service users care.
• To use verbal and non-verbal communication skills gained through training or experience to impart sensitive information.
• To check understanding of information where there are barriers to effective communications.
• To give and receive accurate up-to-date information regarding service users care in reviews and multi-disciplinary meetings etc. These reviews may be external to the Trust.
• To have accurate and up-to-date knowledge of the Mental Health Act / Mental Capacity Act and other relevant legislation.

Person Specification
Qualifications

• Essential: Appropriate professional qualification or experience at Degree Level e.g. RMN, AHP, Social Worker
• Essential: Evidence of post-registration CPD
• Desirable: Working towards master level education

Experience

• Essential: Minimum 2 years post-registration mental health experience
• Evidence of leadership and management skills
• Evidence of experience of managing cases and case loads
• Evidence of supervising staff
• Ability to work autonomously across the organisation/boundaries and with other agencies
• Experience of working in partnership with other agencies and service users and carers
• Experience of audit/research and working knowledge of clinical governance
• Experience in change management and policy formulation
• Experience of using Incident Reporting Systems e.g. RADAR
• Experience of undertaking and involvement in Serious Untoward Incident Reviews
• Evidence of experience of working with a range of people with mental health problems in a variety of health care settings

Skills

• Able to communicate effectively both verbally and non-verbally.
• Being responsive and flexible, seeing change as an opportunity to improve services
• Ability to lead the process of standard setting and audit
• Professional attitude
• Possess excellent listening and negotiation skills and leadership skills
• Excellent oral and written skills
• Excellent interpersonal and organisational skills
• The ability to lead change management
• Ability to contribute to developing care excellence within the ward / team area
• Ability to work within a divisional management team, be able to generate own workload and ability to work to strict deadlines
• Risk assessment and management
• Ability to build purposeful relationships with a range of both internal and external to the organisation
• Autonomous practice
• Leadership and supervision
• Multidisciplinary working

Knowledge

• Essential: Knowledge of mental health legislation, CPA, safeguarding, equality and human rights, clinical governance and professional codes of conduct
• Proven knowledge of relevant mental health legislation
• Demonstrate knowledge in the concepts of mentorship, preceptorship and supervision and ability to provide education and supervision to junior staff
• Demonstrate a good knowledge of professional Codes of Conduct and Staff's responsibility to identify gaps in their knowledge base

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).

Employer details
Employer name: Mersey Care NHS Foundation Trust
Employer's website: https://www.merseycare.nhs.uk/ (Opens in a new tab)

Employer contact details
For questions about the job, contact: Primary Care Mental Health Lead, Carys Sergeant, Carys.Sergeant@merseycare.nhs.uk, 07814456216

Supporting documents: Privacy notice - Mersey Care NHS Foundation Trust's privacy notice (opens in a new tab)