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Job summary

Main area
Prisons
Grade
Band 7
Contract
Permanent
Hours
Full time - 37.5 hours per week
Job ref
277-5841108-PORT-F
Employer
Oxleas NHS Foundation Trust
Employer type
NHS
Site
HMP Portland
Town
Portland
Salary
£43,742 - £50,056 pa
Salary period
Yearly
Closing
06/05/2024 23:59

Employer heading

Oxleas NHS Foundation Trust logo

Substance Misuse Lead

Band 7

Job overview

Are you ready to unlock your potential within a challenging, creative and fast paced work environment? Do you want to escape your current job role and work with people to build positive and productive lives, whatever their past? Now is the time to break into offender healthcare and develop your career.

As part of the South West Prison Healthcare contract awarded to Oxleas NHS trust in 2022, we are able to expand recruitment and are looking for a compassionate, knowledgeable and motivated Substance Misuse Lead to join our friendly team at HMP Portland.

Our healthcare team have a real impact on promoting health and well-being to those in prison and we pride ourselves on using skills and strategies that instil hope for patients future resettlement back into the community. We directly deliver Mental Health, Physical Health, Pharmacy and Clinical Substance Misuse in an integrated healthcare delivery model to provide effective and responsive care to improve wellbeing and support better outcomes in the future.

As part of our substance misuse team, you will enjoy all the benefits of NHS AfC employment (inc pension) with the opportunity to work within a forward-thinking service, who encourage career and personal development to all staff to increase their clinical and interpersonal skills.

Main duties of the job

As our Substance Misuse Lead for HMP Portland, you will be a source of expert advice to our clinicians, service users and their carers. You will be providing specialist nurse interventions to patients with complex substance misuse problems. 

You will be assessing patients with substance misuse needs, prescribing accordingly, discussing all treatment options (which will also include non-pharmacological treatments) and provide specialist advice and guidance relating to their management, care and onward pathways within the prison and in preparation for release back into the community. 

You will lead our nurse-led substance misuse service and develop a specialist practice-based clinical model of care. 

 

Working for our organisation

Oxleas offers a wide range of NHS healthcare services to people in community and secure environment settings. Our services include community health care such as district nursing and speech and language therapy, care for people with learning disabilities and mental health care such as psychiatry, nursing and therapies. Our multidisciplinary teams look after people of all ages and we work in close partnership with other parts of the NHS, local councils and the voluntary sector and through our new provider collaboratives. Our 4,300 members of staff work in many different settings including hospitals, clinics, prisons, secure hospitals, children’s centres, schools and people’s homes.

We have over 125 sites in a variety of locations in the South of England. In London we operate within the Boroughs of Bexley, Bromley Greenwich and into Kent. We manage hospital sites including Queen Mary’s Hospital, Sidcup and Memorial Hospital, Woolwich, as well as the Bracton Centre, our medium secure unit for people with mental health needs. We are the largest NHS provider of prison health services providing healthcare to prisons within Devon, Dorset, Bristol, Wiltshire and Gloucestershire, Kent and South London. We are proud of the care we provide and our people.

Our purpose is to improve lives by providing the best possible care to our patients and their families. This is strengthened by our new values:

  • We’re Kind
  • We’re Fair
  • We Listen
  • We Care

Detailed job description and main responsibilities

  • The post holder will exercise a high degree of personal and professional autonomy, make complex and critical judgments, and have decision making skills to satisfy the expectations of the role.
  • To participate in the comprehensive assessments of service users referred to the team, including specialist assessments of service users requiring non-medical prescribing, ensuring that a medical history and medication history, is undertaken and implemented where required.
  • To prescribe and change medications within area of speciality and competence.
  • To strategically develop, deliver, clinically audit and evaluate the substance misuse services for the prison. This will include development and implementation of appropriate referral/care pathway for service users identified as having a dual diagnosis.
  • To demonstrate and provide robust expert clinical leadership to junior staff with a sound understanding of evidence-based nursing practice to provide a pro-active approach to ensure quality and outcome driven practice on a day-to-day basis.
  • To support the development of monitoring systems, to promote the development of evidence-based practice in the specialist field and to promote research as appropriate.
  • To participate and lead as directed in the managerial and professional clinical supervision programme, to ensure all junior staff receive appropriate supervision, training and annual appraisal, and to ensure that it becomes an integral part of team practice.
  • To ensure the implementation of effective and appropriate service user centred care plans and consistent delivery throughout the prison.
  • To promote engagement with the Mayor’s Office for Policing and Crime (MOPAC) dual diagnosis programme with service users.
  • The post holder will work collaboratively with the Operational Manager, Clinical Leads, GPs and other clinicians to meet and review service needs as required. To actively promote service user healthcare through the provision of information, formal presentations, general networking and liaison with prison, statutory and other non-statutory agencies

IMPORTANT INFORMATION, PLEASE READ:

All applicants must be willing to undertake National Security Vetting in order to work in a Prison Setting. This will be completed as part of the pre-employment checks through Oxleas and the prison vetting team.  

 

You will need to provide: 

Proof of right to work documentation 

Proof of ID, needs to include 1 photographic ID

Proof of address documentation 

Non-UK passport holders will need to have correct documentation (right to work in the UK) and a Home office Share code. 

 

Address History: 

5 years address history will be needed.  

Applicants that are not UK Passport holders who provide less than 5 years UK address history will need to provide a Police Certificate which must be in English from where they resided previously. 

Applicants who are UK Passport holders who have lived abroad for a period of more than six months during the last three years will need to provide a certificate of good conduct or an overseas police check in English from the countries resided in or visited.

 

In order to assist you in obtaining a Police Certificate, guidance can be sought from:https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/criminal-records-checks-for-overseas-applicants

If the country you have resided in is not listed here, you can obtain the necessary information by contacting the relevant Embassy or High Commission for that Country. Their contact details can be found on the Foreign & Commonwealth Office website (http://www.fco.gov.uk/en).

Person specification

Qualifications

Essential criteria
  • Professional Qualification. (Registered Nurse/Mental Health Nurse)
  • Post registration qualification in Nurse Independent / Supplementary Prescriber recorded by NMC.

Experience

Essential criteria
  • Previous experience at a Senior Nurse / Band 6 level within offender care
  • Experience of working within prison settings

Skills/Abilities/Knowledge

Essential criteria
  • Ability to communicate effectively both verbally and in writing, complex and contentious presenting ideas with clarity in a persuasive and influential style, for a variety of audiences.
  • Ability to manage change and develop innovative ways of working.
  • Ability to work effectively and autonomously

Employer certification / accreditation badges

Veteran AwareNo smoking policyAge positiveInvestors in People: GoldDefence Employer Recognition Scheme (ERS) - BronzeImproving working livesArmed Forces Covenant Gold AwardMindful employer.  Being positive about mental health.Disability confident employerStonewall equality policy. Equality and justice for lesbians, gay men, bisexual and trans people.Step into health

Applicant requirements

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
Suraj Persand
Job title
Head of Healthcare
Email address
[email protected]
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