Job overview

As a Mental Health Nurse you will be providing specialist mental healthcare to offenders and working as part of the Mental Health In-Reach Team, plus wider mental health services at HMP Rochester and HMP Cookham Wood. 

You will be required to work in a psychologically minded way with offenders in achieving their agreed goals and quality health outcomes.

Our Mental Health Team provide specialist interventions at primary and secondary care level including; referral management, screening assessment, triage, evidence-based interventions, care planning and risk assessing, plus one-to-one and group-work facilitation. 

Alongside our Mental Health Practitioners you will manage a mixed and challenging caseload and be required to perform robust assessment, screening and interventions to offenders with learning disabilities and mental health conditions. 

 You will work closely with community mental health teams to ensure appropriate sharing of information, continuity of care and the Care Programme Approach for all offenders as necessary.

***Important Sponsorship Information for this post: Due to service budget restrictions we are currently unable to offer a certificate of sponsorship for this post***

Main duties of the job

To work under the direction of senior staff to deliver and constantly strive to improve the offender healthcare services.

To provide mental health care based on the principles of timely, comprehensive assessment and evidence-based practice.

To reduce or mitigate the effects of unhealthy or high-risk behaviours (ACCT).

To promote effective links with health and related services in the community to ensure continuity of care as appropriate (Care program Approach, CPA).

This post is based at HMP Rochester and HMP Cookham Wood, but will require close working relationships with colleagues at nearby Kent prisons; HMP Maidstone, HMP East Sutton Park, and cross-cover may occasionally be required.

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