Job summary
- Main area
- Mental Health
- Grade
- Band 7
- Contract
- Permanent
- Hours
- Full time - 37.5 hours per week
- Job ref
- 350-TWS7162286-A
- Employer
- Mersey Care NHS Foundation Trust
- Employer type
- NHS
- Site
- Hollins Park House
- Town
- Winwick
- Salary
- £46,148 - £52,809 per annum
- Salary period
- Yearly
- Closing
- 14/07/2025 23:59
- Interview date
- 25/07/2025
Employer heading
Mental Health Legislation Lead
Band 7
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Mersey Care NHS Foundation Trust celebrates diversity and promotes equal opportunities; we are committed to challenging and eliminating racism and other forms of discrimination and advancing and promoting equality of opportunity in the provision of services and creating an inclusive environment for all employees. We believe that everyone has the right to be treated with dignity and respect.
We take positive action to support disadvantaged groups and also particularly encourage applications from ethnically diverse, disabled and LGBTQIA+ people that are under-represented in our workforce. Furthermore we welcome applications from reservists and ex-armed forces personnel as we recognise the benefits of the values, skills, training and experience that they bring to their work with us. We encourage all applicants to share their equality information with us.
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Job overview
The Trust has a duty and a desire to deliver the Mental Health Act to the highest possible standard with the aim of keeping patients safe. To do this the Trust needs to ensure that its staff have a sound fundamental knowledge of the legislation and that they have access to specialist knowledge and support to help them when they are faced with complex situations.
The Trust is looking to recruit a highly motivated and knowledgeable mental health lead who will have a special focus on the Mental Health Act.
Mersey Care NHS Foundation Trust provides specialist inpatient and community mental health, learning disabilities, addiction and acquired brain injury services for the people of Liverpool, Sefton and Kirkby, Merseyside. We also provide community physical health services in Liverpool, Sefton, secure mental health services for the North West of England, the West Midlands and Wales and specialist learning disability services across Lancashire, Greater Manchester, Cheshire and Merseyside.
Our ambition is to deliver perfect care to become the world’s leading organisation in holistic health and well being.
Mersey Care’s vision and values of Continuous Improvement, Accountability, Respect, Enthusiasm and Support (CARES) drive our organisation and the way we work together to deliver services. Applicants will be expected to demonstrate, during recruitment and any subsequent employment with the Trust, that their behaviour supports our values.
Main duties of the job
The role will;
- Lead the development and implementation of policy and procedure.
- Prepare for the implementation of any new legislation/case law.
- Provide bespoke and specialist advice and training to clinicians and managers across the Trust.
- Undertake audits to identify any gaps in the delivery of the Mental Health Act.
- Link with external agencies to ensure that partnership working is as robust as possible.
- Prepare reports to Trust committees on the Trust's adherence to the Mental Health Act
Working for our organisation
Mersey Care is one of the largest trusts providing physical health and mental health services in the North West, serving more than 1.4 million people across our region and are also commissioned for services that cover the North West, North Wales and the Midlands.
We offer specialist inpatient and community services that support physical and mental health and specialist inpatient mental health, learning disability, addiction and brain injury services. Mersey Care is one of only three trusts in the UK that offer high secure mental health facilities.
At the heart of all we do is our commitment to ‘perfect care’ – care that is safe, effective, positively experienced, timely, equitable and efficient. We support our staff to do the best job they can and work alongside service users, their families, and carers to design and develop future services together. We’re currently delivering a programme of organisational and service transformation to significantly improve the quality of the services we provide and safely reduce cost as we do so.
Flexible working requests will be considered for all roles.
Detailed job description and main responsibilities
- Lead in providing advice, scrutiny and audit of the implementation of the Mental Health Act and other relevant legislation for the Trust.
- Keep the Trust informed of emerging developments in this area, supporting other leads to ensure the Trust support principles underpinning the Mental Health Act and Mental Capacity Act.
- Be responsible for the overall professional management of the Mental Health Act.
- Interpret national policy and legislation in relation to a range of policy areas and to be responsible for the policy development of the service in regard to these areas.
- Develop and deliver training strategies for staff across the organisation that is specific to their job roles.
- Provide practical advice to all staff in relation to promoting best practice in line with key Mental Health legislation and professional and organisational responsibilities.
- Support and give expert practical advice on decision making in this area for complex cases.
Person specification
Qualification
Essential criteria
- 1st Level Degree (e.g. BA or BSc)
- 3 years experience in working within Mental Health Law / Mental Capacity Law
- Continual updating of statutory and common law knowledge in relation to mental health and mental capacity law management
- IMHAP Member
Desirable criteria
- ECDL IT Qualification
- Nurse management qualification.
- Adverse incident training
- Professional health care qualification (eg Nurse, social worker etc)
Knowledge
Essential criteria
- In-depth knowledge and understanding of Mental Health Act, Mental Capacity Act, their associated Codes of Practice and their applications
- Confidentiality, dissemination of information.
- Awareness and understanding of key Government policy and legislation in relation to both the Mental Health Act and Mental Capacity Act and Court of Protection proceedings
- Word processing and inhouse patient database
- Chairing meetings
- Proven ability in high level report writing
- Up to date knowledge (to a level able to advise others) of case-law and statutory law
- Proven ability to liaise with and manage various internal and external disciplines/agencies in order to ensure joint-agency service delivery.
- Demonstrable experience of project management.
- Experience of undertaking research and/or audit and presenting data in a variety of formats.
Desirable criteria
- Good knowledge of database and spreadsheet packages.
- Proven knowledge of medical terminology and clinical practice
- 3 years teaching experience within the mental health setting
Skills
Essential criteria
- Ability to critically analyse queries and reports and respond in kind
- Ablility to make judgments as to what are and are not lawful actions and what to do should breaches occur.
- Ability to write and implement policies, and procedures consistent with legal, national and local guidelines and protocols
- Experience in recruiting and interviewing staff etc
- Experience in having had a senior role within a team
- Excellent language skills, both written and verbal
- Excellent communication, listening, interpersonal skills
- Proven organisational and problem solving skills
- To be highly motivated
- Proven ability to prioritise and manage time of own workload and that of staff effectively
- Ability to build good working relationships and liaise with staff at all levels.
- IT competence
- Confident telephone manner and customer care skills.
- Ability to deal with difficult people in difficult situations (including good negotiation skills)
- To be decisive and able to maintain a calm approach.
- To be empathic/sensitive and of good integrity
- To be enthusiastic, positive and flexible.
Desirable criteria
- Experience in line management
Values
Essential criteria
- Continuous Improvement
- Accountability
- Respectfulness
- Enthusiasm
- Support
- High professional standards
- Responsive to service users
- Engaging leadership style
- Strong customer service belief
- Transparency and honesty
- Discreet
- Change oriented
Employer certification / accreditation badges
Applicant requirements
The postholder will have regular contact with vulnerable people and as such this post is subject to the Rehabilitation of Offenders Act 1974 (Exceptions) Order 1975 (Amendment) (England and Wales) Order 2020 and as such it will be necessary for a submission for Disclosure to be made to the Disclosure and Barring Service to check for any previous criminal convictions.
Documents to download
Further details / informal visits contact
- Name
- Claire Brockbank
- Job title
- Head of Integrated Governance-Safety
- Email address
- [email protected]
- Telephone number
- 07435412560
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