Job summary
- Main area
- Health in Justice
- Grade
- Band 5
- Contract
- Permanent
- Hours
- Full time - 37.5 hours per week
- Job ref
- 455-NLFT-0022-A
- Employer
- North London NHS Foundation Trust
- Employer type
- NHS
- Site
- HMP Pentonville
- Town
- London
- Salary
- £37,259 - £45,356 Per annum, inclusive of Inner London HCAS
- Salary period
- Yearly
- Closing
- 28/08/2025 23:59
Employer heading
Occupational Therapist
Band 5
Thank you for your interest in the North London NHS Foundation Trust (NLFT). This is an exciting time to join us and be part of our journey to improve mental health care across North London and deliver excellent services to our local people. We will achieve this through the North London Way, as we:
- Collaborate at every level by living our values to create the right conditions for us all to work together.
- Develop our new Trust culture, to help make our new Trust a great place to work and to receive great care.
- Empower our teams to lead the planned improvements in our services, by skilling them and giving them the tools to make the changes.
- Focus on delivering excellence at every level to improve our performance and ensure consistently high-quality care across all our services.
- Ensure that research, quality improvement, and technology lead the way and are embedded in our services.
- Take a trauma informed approach to everything we do
We proactively welcome diversity in our workforce and pride ourselves on being an inclusive employer. We aim to recruit from our local communities and provide opportunities to all including apprenticeships, veterans, care leavers and more.
The North London Way to deliver: Better Mental Health, Better Lives, Better Communities.
Our trust website is: https://www.northlondonmentalhealth.nhs.uk/
Job overview
The post holder will work as part of the Occupational therapy team which are an integral part of a large health and wellbeing team at HMP Pentonville. The team includes psychology and occupational therapy staff, speech and language therapist and substance misuse workers. The team contribute to the overall healthcare provision within the prison, working across the healthcare department to provide comprehensive OT input across the Inpatient ward, the Wellbeing Centre, neurodiversity unit and across the wider prison
The post holder will work within the mental health hub, a day service providing an Occupational therapy service to those with complex mental health problems, personality disorder, mood disorders, PTSD, trauma, and ADHD, as well as those on the autistic spectrum. The role will also have input to other elements of the healthcare services such as the inpatient unit, the in reach team and the health and wellbeing team.
Main duties of the job
- To carry out standardised assessments, interventions and provide detailed feedback to the therapies and multidisciplinary teams about clients’ abilities, and also information about future plans and requirements for progress within a mixture of settings including but not limited to; the Wellbeing Centre, Neurodiversity unit, inpatient ward
- To actively contribute to the multidisciplinary team’s risk assessment process and obtain agreement from the team before engaging service users in any activity that may require therapeutic risk taking.
- To work in collaboration with other members of the multidisciplinary team to provide a coordinated care package.
- To regularly review each service user’s progress in order to evaluate the effectiveness of treatment interventions and modify treatment plans accordingly.
- To ensure that the OT package of care is being followed for all service users that postholder is responsible for including those of whom they supervise.
- To work in accordance with professional guidelines issued by the College of Occupational Therapy which are relevant to the field of Forensic Psychiatry.
- To be a self-directed practitioner, with effective time management skills, able to manage a varied caseload and demands around regular duties.
- To pursue own continuous professional development and to record this through a CPD portfolio.
Working for our organisation
The partnership between Barnet, Enfield and Haringey Mental Health NHS Trust (BEH) and Camden and Islington NHS Foundation Trust (C&I) is going from strength to strength since it was originally established in 2021 forming the North London Mental Health Partnership.
In order to meet the needs of the new Partnership services you may be required from time to time to work at different locations to your normal place of work. This may mean that you are required to work at any location that fall under Barnet, Enfield and Harringay Trust and Camden and Islington Trust. The Trust reserves the right to require staff to work at such other places or locations as it considers reasonable and necessary on a temporary or permanent basis.
Detailed job description and main responsibilities
Please refer to the attached Job description and Person Specification for main responsibilities of the role.
Person specification
Qualifications
Essential criteria
- Dip. COT or BSc OT
- Registered with HCPC
- Evidence of Continuous Professional Development
EXPERIENCE AND KNOWLEDGE
Essential criteria
- OT placement or post graduate clinical experience in forensics / mental health / prison settings
- Experience of group-work
- Experience of working in an MDT
- Experience of using electronic patient records
- Experience of carrying out functional assessments
- Experience of relating to people from a range of social and ethnic backgrounds
- Knowledge of developments in O.T. adult mental health, and prison settings
- Experience or knowledge of substance misuse and social issues
- An understanding of forensic issues
- Knowledge of O.T. models of practice, e.g. MOHO
SKILLS AND ABILITIES
Essential criteria
- Working knowledge of the occupational therapy process
- Ability to apply and develop core OT Skills
- Willing to contribute towards OT service development
- A demonstrated ability to understand clinical needs of the forensic / offender client group
- Excellent written and verbal communication skills
- Maintains professional standards of communication
- Effective time management skills
- Ability to laterally think and problem solve.
- Good IT skills
PERSONAL QUALITIES
Essential criteria
- Commitment to work as a proactive team member
- Empathy for people with mental health problems and passionate about service user involvement
- Aware of own limitations and needs and ability to seeks advice and support appropriately
- Ability to promote self and the service
- Professional manner
- Ability to tolerate busy and loud locked environments.
OTHER REQUIREMENTS
Essential criteria
- Ability to be flexible and adaptable to manage fluctuating work demands.
- Effective use of supervision.
- Proactive use of continuous professional development opportunities
- An ability to articulate the role of Occupational Therapy role to those with limited previous experience of and understanding of the profession.
- Service user-centred approach.
- Resilience for working with those who express high levels of traumatic information and distress.
Employer certification / accreditation badges
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
- Olivia Ward
- Job title
- OT Lead
- Email address
- [email protected]
- Telephone number
- 02070237368
List jobs with North London NHS Foundation Trust in Allied Health Professions or all sectors