Job summary
- Main area
- Children's Occupational Therapist
- Grade
- Band 5
- Contract
- Permanent
- Hours
- Full time - 37.5 hours per week
- Job ref
- 327-25-831
- Employer
- Gloucestershire Health and Care NHS Foundation Trust
- Employer type
- NHS
- Site
- Springbank Community Centre
- Town
- Cheltenham
- Salary
- £31,049 - £37,796 per annum
- Salary period
- Yearly
- Closing
- 28/10/2025 23:59
- Interview date
- 06/11/2025
Employer heading

CYPS Occupational Therapist
Band 5
We love what we do and we think you will, too!
At Gloucestershire Health and Care NHS Foundation Trust (GHC), we provide joined-up mental health, physical health and learning disability services to people of all ages across Gloucestershire. We run community hospitals and provide care and support in people’s own homes and in a range of other locations across the county.
We are on a mission to enable people to live the best life they can and we have a vision to work together to provide outstanding care. We put people at the heart of our services, focusing on personalised care by asking ‘what matters to you’.
We’re passionate about making sure that everyone can contribute to achieving our mission and we are continually working to support healthy and happy high-quality teams in all areas of the Trust.
Our application process aims to understand each candidates knowledge, skills and experience. We have found that candidates that use AI to generate their answers can lack specificity and fail to address key criteria outlined in the job description.
It is really important to personalise your application to convey your individual skills, knowledge, and experiences effectively and for us to understand why you are applying for this role with GHC. We discourage over reliance on AI-generated applications as it will lessen your chances of success in securing an interview with us .
Job overview
Join our dedicated CYPS team supporting children and young people (0–18yrs) across mental health, physical health, and learning disabilities. Gloucestershire has around 137,000 children and young people, and our service spans 32 areas, working closely with families, schools, and multi-agency partners.
As a Band 5 Occupational Therapist, you will:
Manage a specialist clinical caseload with support from senior staff.
Deliver assessments and treatment programmes for children with diverse physical healthcare needs.
Work across community, home, school, nursery, and hospital settings, using both face-to-face and digital interventions (Attend Anywhere).
Develop independent practice and consolidate your clinical experience through ongoing professional development.
We offer a supportive, multi-disciplinary team environment, opportunities for CPD, and the chance to make a real difference in the lives of children, young people, and their families.
A valid Driving Licence is essential for this post.
Main duties of the job
- Will work under the close supervision of a clinical supervisor as well as be supported by their designated line manager
- Provide a range of health care based assessment and treatment interventions for children and young people (0-18yrs) and their families/carers within the designated team. Provision will be in accordance to the application of a range of profession specific models of clinical practice. This will include:
- Providing a holistic clinical/health assessment and delivery intervention programmes for children and young people with a range of needs. Care planning will utilise a range of treatments, skills and options for use in both the home, community and school setting.
- Personalised and coproduction approach will be offered when working with families, parents and carers
- This includes consideration and identification of safeguarding needs and taking further action where required.
- Clinical care will take a trauma informed approach with knowledge and understanding of Adverse Child Experience (ACES) that may be impacting on presenting needs.
- Undertaking comprehensive assessment/formulation of children and young people (including diagnostic where required), using investigative, analytical and effective clinical reasoning skills. Demonstrating profession based core skills and competencies including effective clinical decision making and the ability to articulate rationale behind clinical decision making.
Working for our organisation
We have a skilled and dedicated workforce of over 5000 colleagues working in a diverse range of services over 55 sites and within people’s homes. We strive to enable a welcoming workplace culture that builds and celebrates civility, inclusivity and diversity, while providing a sense of belonging and trust.
Annual staff surveys, regular Pulse surveys and other engagement opportunities provide our people with lots of opportunity to tell us about their experiences of working with us. In the latest staff survey, 61% of colleagues gave us their views. It was great to hear that:
- 72% of colleagues would recommend the Trust as a place to work, ranking us 1st for Provider Trusts in the South West region on this question.
- 76% would recommend the standard of care provided in our services if a friend or relative needed treatment, also ranking us 1st in the South West region.
- 81% said that care of patients and service users is the Trust’s priority, compared with an average in comparable NHS Trusts in England of 64%.
This high-level overview shows we are in a healthy position, with higher scores than average for comparable organisations, alongside a great response rate, indicating good staff engagement. However, we also know we have plenty of room for improvement in many areas. To that end, we continue to prioritise and invest in our commitment to genuinely becoming a Great Place to Work with consistent top-quartile performance in the annual staff survey and Pulse surveys.
Detailed job description and main responsibilities
- As requested, to support continuous improvement of quality and clinical aspects of service provision through robust audit, Quality Improvement (QI), evaluation, system change and innovation. This will:
- Reflect local demographic & health needs and priorities and contributing to addressing and reducing health inequalities.
- Implement learning from successes, setbacks & continuous improvement cycles
- Champion inclusivity and the recognition that personalised care is key to meeting the range of differing needs of children and young people within Gloucestershire.
- Champion opportunities to develop digitally enabled care throughout the clinical pathway
- Contribute to the implementation of robust and reportable clinical outcome measures to enhance clinical service delivery
- Support the team as a Band 5 to ensure clinical delivery is managed through robust processes and pathways, including reflecting key principles and deliverables within the Care Aims Framework/ THRIVE/Levels of Intervention or other models of delivery
- Deputise for CYPS Band 6’s when required.
- Contribute to providing out of hours services if requested by CYPS Management
- As delegated, to complete tasks including audit, “deep dive” or other evaluative review.
- Uphold team/service based Standard Operational Procedures/Operational Handbooks
- Be accountable for maintaining and developing own profession based skills, knowledge & core competencies by specific standards and Code of Conduct. This will be through regular continuing professional development (CPD) activities including reflective practice, maintenance of a personal portfolio and the attendance of relevant training courses as identified within annual appraisal process
We provide a Multi-professional preceptorship programme that is aligned to the National Preceptorship Framework for Nursing and have been awarded the Interim quality mark from NHS England. Our programme is provided to all Newly Qualified; Nurses, Nursing Associates, Internationally Educated Practitioners, Allied Health Professionals and Return to Practice Practitioners. In addition to the programme we also offer all preceptees the opportunity of enrolling and completing the level 7 (Masters) 15 credit validated module “Preceptorship for Healthcare” (AP7026).
The Trust is required to work in line with the Government’s UK Visa and Immigration Rules and Regulations. For more information about sponsorship for certain roles, please visit - https://www.gov.uk/browse/visas-immigration/work-visas
Person specification
Experience
Essential criteria
- Evidence of clinical experience through previous posts/student placements
- Experience of working closely with healthcare practitioners across professional boundaries
- Ability to manage a caseload, unsupervised
Desirable criteria
- Experience in children’s community healthcare; Experience with complex/vulnerable children
- Awareness of SEND agenda and EHCP processes
- Experience of collaborative multiagency planning
Other Requirements
Essential criteria
- A valid UK driving licence plus the use of own transport for business purposes is essential
Qualifications
Essential criteria
- Registered Occupational Therapist and be registered with the Health & Care Professions Council (HCPC)
Desirable criteria
- Postgraduate training in relevant CYPS field or skill
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
Further details / informal visits contact
- Name
- Katie Nixon
- Job title
- CYPS Head of Service for OT & Home Safety
- Email address
- [email protected]
- Telephone number
- 0300 421 8927
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