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Job summary

Main area
Adults & Specialist Mental Health Services
Grade
Band 7
Contract
Permanent
Hours
Full time - 37.5 hours per week
Job ref
310-MASMH-7330206
Employer
Cambridgeshire and Peterborough NHS Foundation Trust
Employer type
NHS
Site
Kingfisher House
Town
Huntingdon
Salary
£46,148 - £52,809 per annum pro rata
Salary period
Yearly
Closing
04/09/2025 23:59

Employer heading

Cambridgeshire and Peterborough NHS Foundation Trust logo

First Response Service Clinical Lead

Band 7

Job overview

Are you a passionate and motivated mental health professional looking for your next challenge? We’re seeking an enthusiastic Clinical Lead  to join our dynamic First Response Service — a pioneering, award-winning team providing 24/7 mental health crisis support to individuals of all ages.

As part of our service, you’ll work closely with key community partners including the police, ambulance services, and local authorities to deliver compassionate, responsive care during times of crisis. This is a unique opportunity to make a real difference in people’s lives when they need it most.

  • Provide 1:1 support through both telephone triage and face-to-face assessments
  • Collaborate with service users to develop effective crisis and safety plans
  • Lead and support a multidisciplinary team, offering clinical guidance and mentorship

What we're looking for:

  • A qualified mental health practitioner with leadership experience or aspirations
  • Strong clinical skills in crisis intervention, risk assessment, and safety planning
  • Resilience, adaptability, and a calm approach under pressure
  • A commitment to compassionate, person-centred care

Why join us?

  • Be part of a forward-thinking, supportive team.
  • Work in a role that offers variety, challenge, and the chance to grow professionally

If you’re ready to take the next step in your career and want to be part of a service that’s transforming mental health crisis care in our community — we want to hear from you

Main duties of the job

As Clinical Lead, you’ll play a pivotal role in both direct care and team leadership. Your responsibilities will include:

  • Coordinating shifts and allocating referrals and assessments across the team
  • Conducting telephone triage and face-to-face community assessments, especially for complex cases
  • Delivering brief clinical risk assessments, mental health formulations, and short-term contingency plans
  • Liaising with professionals and agencies such as emergency services, GPs, schools, and care homes
  • Working closely with other mental health services including secondary care and crisis teams
  • Implementing solution-focused interventions to empower patients, carers, and families
  • Developing safe and effective care plans using strong communication and clinical judgment
  • Drawing on your knowledge of external resources to provide tailored support for individual needs

Working for our organisation

Cambridgeshire & Peterborough NHS Foundation Trust is a health & social care organisation dedicated to providing high quality care with compassion to improve the health & wellbeing of the people we care for, as well as supporting & empowering them to lead a fulfilling life.

Our clinical teams deliver many NHS services not only via inpatient and primary care setting but also with the community. These services include Children, Adult & Older Peoples mental & physical health, Forensic & Specialist mental health, Learning Disabilities, Primary Care & Liaison psychiatry, Substance misuse, Social care, Research & Development.

To achieve our goal, we look to recruit high calibre candidates that share our vision & values. As an equal opportunities employer, we encourage applications from all sectors of the community, particularly from under-represented groups including disabled people & members of our ethnic minorities & LGBTQ+ communities.

Detailed job description and main responsibilities

Please refer to the attached job description and person specification for full details of responsibilities.

Co-ordinate shifts and support colleagues.

Provide evidence based clinical interventions, making autonomous clinical decisions about own professional practice.

Responsibility for the development, planning and implementation of brief care and treatment interventions for individual patients in liaison with the First Response Service.

Provide assessment, planning and implementation of individual packages of care and treatment.

Ensure that individual episodes of care are delivered in a timely, effective and integrated manner.

Promote a recovery model that empowers patients, carers and relatives to be at the forefront of decision making and ownership of their packages of care and treatment.

Undertake clinical risk assessments, based on latest empirical evidence and compliant with local policies and procedures.

Act as the patients and relatives advocate.

Enable patients and carers to manage disability, loss and change.

Champion patients’ rights, including: dignity, equality, diversity, choice and respect.

When undertaking all of the above ensure good documentation is provided and entered within the appropriate systems of record sharing.

Escalate concerns.

Delegate duties and prioritise urgency of assessments.

Person specification

Education/Qualifications

Essential criteria
  • Social work Qualification
  • Mental Health Nurse Qualification/ NMC Registration.
  • Evidence of continuing professional development
  • Undertaken/working towards accredited courses which enable potential Advanced Practitioner registration.
  • Teaching (clinical practice) qualification/certificate or equivalent experience
Desirable criteria
  • Advanced Nurse Prescriber Qualification / or AMPH qualification
  • Leadership qualification/training

Experience

Essential criteria
  • Mental health care/treatment relevant to service.
  • Working with people presenting in mental health crisis.
  • Teaching, training and/or supervision of clinical staff.
  • Multi-agency working/working across service interfaces.
  • Working within a multicultural framework.
Desirable criteria
  • Experience of teaching, training and/or supervision of clinical staff.

Skills & Abilities

Essential criteria
  • Assessing, formulating and working with people presenting in heightened state of distress.
  • Communicating (oral and written) complex/highly technical and clinically sensitive information to clients, their families, carers and other professional colleagues both within and outside the NHS.
  • Clinical risk assessment and contingency planning.
  • Able to meet the service needs for mobility across the geographical area covered.
  • Able to demonstrate commitment to high quality care and service provision
Desirable criteria
  • Experience of delivering brief psychological interventions/strategies for managing crisis

Employer certification / accreditation badges

NHS Pastoral Care Quality AwardNHS Employers Diversity and Inclusion PartnersVeteran AwareApprenticeships logoNo smoking policyAge positiveDisability confident leaderInvestors in PeopleDefence Employer Recognition Scheme (ERS) - BronzeImproving working livesMindful employer.  Being positive about mental health.We offer Wagestream - A financial wellbeing benefit which lets you access your pay as you earn it.NHS Rainbow badgePrince's Trust - Proud to support the Prince's trust - Youth can do itStep into healthMenopause Workplace PledgeArmed Forces Covenant

Applicant requirements

You must have appropriate UK professional registration.

This post is subject to the Rehabilitation of Offenders Act 1974 (Exceptions) Order 1975 (Amendment) (England and Wales) Order 2020 and it will be necessary for a submission for Disclosure to be made to the Disclosure and Barring Service.

Documents to download

Apply online now

Further details / informal visits contact

Name
Hayley Workman
Job title
Team Leader
Email address
[email protected]
Telephone number
01480 757365
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