Job overview

• 2 days HMP Erlestoke
• 2 days HMP Guys Marsh

Main duties of the job

The post holder will work across HMP Erlestoke and HMP Guy’s Marsh and provide medical leadership to the mental health in-reach teams at each site. There is significant input from psychology to work with trauma and personality disorders prevalent in the prison population and the teams work to a model of trauma informed care. The mental health services work alongside a dedicated substance misuse service provided by Change Grow Live. The role of the Consultant Psychiatrist is thus in particular to assessment and management of those conditions requiring pharmacological input, most commonly chronic psychotic illness, mood disorders and ADHD. The work takes place in the wider context of rehabilitative work delivered by the prison who deliver a variety of Offending Behaviour Programmes and interventions at these sites. 

Much of the clinical work involves seeing patients within a healthcare department of the prison on an Outpatient basis. Patients are case worked by the In-reach team, analogous to a CMHT. Occasionally a prisoner may require transfer from prison to hospital under the Mental Health Act and if a prisoner becomes extremely unwell it may be necessary to assess them on the prison wing. The Consultant Psychiatrist will be expected to maintain s12(2) approval lead on transfers under the Mental Health Act.

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