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Job summary

Main area
Legal Service
Grade
NHS AfC: Band 5
Contract
Permanent
Hours
Full time - 37.5 hours per week
Job ref
285-1938-CORP
Employer
Black Country Healthcare NHS Foundation Trust
Employer type
NHS
Site
Wolverhampton Civic Centre
Town
Wolverhampton,
Salary
£29,970 - £36,483 per annum
Salary period
Yearly
Closing
21/07/2025 23:59

Employer heading

Black Country Healthcare NHS Foundation Trust logo

Paralegal

NHS AfC: Band 5

Black Country Healthcare NHS Foundation Trust provides specialist mental health, learning disability, and community healthcare services for the population of the Black Country.

Across the whole of the region we provide:

  • Adult and older adult mental health services
  • Specialist learning disability services
  • Mental health services for children and young people
  • Community healthcare services for children, young people and families in Dudley

Black Country Healthcare NHS Foundation Trust was formed on 1 April 2020, with the merger of Black Country Partnership NHS Foundation Trust and Dudley and Walsall Mental Health Partnership NHS Trust. Combining resources, strategies and talented workforce enables us to deliver a wider variety of outstanding services that are based on best practice and are continually improving.

We currently employ over 4,000 people and just like the population we serve, we are made up of diverse cultures and backgrounds. Whatever your role, working in a NHS Foundation Trust, like ours, is a demanding and extremely rewarding experience. Knowing that every day you can help to make a positive difference to someone’s life is a very powerful feeling. We know that our Trust runs on this desire to help and support people, and our Trust vision expresses this. Our vision is to improve health and wellbeing for everyone, especially our colleagues to achieve the best possible work/life balance.

We proudly offer supportive, inclusive and family friendly employment and flexible working policies. We have a wide range of professional services and employee networks to help our colleagues be at their best - and find support if they need it. To find more about our staff benefits, please visit our website: blackcountryhealthcare.nhs.uk. 

Don’t meet every single requirement? Studies have shown that women and ethnic minority candidates are less likely to apply to jobs unless they meet every single qualification. At Black Country Healthcare we recognise and value all forms of knowledge and expertise, so if you’re excited about this role but your past experience doesn’t align perfectly with every qualification or criteria in the job description/person specification, we encourage you to apply anyway. You may be just the right candidate for this or other roles.

For further supporting information to help you apply for this role please see documents attached under ‘Additional documents’.

Job overview

Detailed personal specifications and job descriptions have been attached to this advert for candidates to familiarize themselves with.

Main duties of the job

Detailed personal specifications and job descriptions have been attached to this advert for candidates to familiarize themselves with.

Working for our organisation

Detailed personal specifications and job descriptions have been attached to this advert for candidates to familiarize themselves with.

Detailed job description and main responsibilities

Detailed personal specifications and job descriptions have been attached to this advert for candidates to familiarize themselves with.

Person specification

All

Essential criteria
  • Law degree/GDL from the UK university (which entitles you to train as a solicitor/barrister in England and Wales)
Desirable criteria
  • Experience of managing tasks within the scope of inquests in the Coroner’s Court

All

Essential criteria
  • Experience of working within a legal team
  • Experience of managing tasks within the scope of inquests in the Coroner’s Court
  • Experience of managing tasks related to claims made against the Trust, across variety of legal fields, such as clinical negligence, public liability, data protection, employment law, etc.)
  • Basic knowledge of key legal issues in the NHS/healthcare, including, but not limited to: • Mental Health Act 1983 • Care Act 2014 • Mental Capacity Act 2005 • Children Act 1989 • Data Protection Act 2018 • Access to Health Records Act 1990 • Civil Procedure Rules 1998 with associated Practice Directions • Court of Protection Rules 2017 • Coroners and Justice Act 2009 • Coroners (Inquests) Rules 2013 and Coroners (Investigation) Regulations 2013
  • Knowledge of the principles and processes of litigation within the UK Courts and Tribunal service.
  • Good knowledge of the Deprivation of Liberty Safeguarding process and all administrative requirements related to this process
  • Able to prioritise your own workload
  • Able to work under time pressure and set deadlines
  • Able to process applications for Deprivation of Liberty to the Local Authorities and associated matters
  • Ability to gather, write, and provide complex information for others to understand and interpret
  • Ability to draft letters to clients, clinical staff and other health care professionals in order to obtain evidence to assist in the investigation of court of protection matters.
  • Ability to draft first drafts of witness statements for use in the inquests/court proceedings under supervision
  • Ability to contact relevant stakeholders by telephone and arrange meetings and attend these meetings, initially with the supervisor, progressing to interviewing witnesses and
  • Ability to review patients’ medical records and reports to consider whether disclosure to the court and other interested persons is appropriate with reference to the Data Protection Act 2018 and the Access to Health Records Act 1990.
  • Ability to action disclosures under supervision.
  • Ability to assist in the identification of suitable medical and non-medical experts within differing specialities to provide independent expert reports to assist in the investigation;
  • Ability to formally instruct experts to prepare reports under supervision.
  • Ability to attend meetings/hearing with other third parties such and draft notes from the meeting.
  • Ability to draft of formal/court documents, including reviews, indexes, paginating and collating medical records into bundles and to draft chronologies of medical records.
  • Ability to undertake research when considering and applying court guidelines and established legal cases.
  • Ability to draft initial letters of advice, under supervision, to advise the Trust regarding the potential conclusions of the matter, risks for Trust, media risks, summarising witness evidence and proposing next steps in terms of identifying and addressing lesson learning.
  • Ability to keep accurate records of time spent in daily activities via the computerised case management system, to enable costs to be recovered in successful cases and for NHS audit and reporting purposes.
  • Effective and sensitive handling of difficult information and situations
  • Motivational, negotiating and persuasive skills, for example when there is a difference of threshold view in a strategy discussion
  • Ability to work across a range of clinical systems, capturing relevant information from different systems
  • Excellent written and verbal communication skills
  • Ability to effectively communicate both verbally and in writing to a wide range of people
  • Flexible and adaptable to changing workload
  • Able to work from across various sites and areas where the Trust provides its services and attend hearings and meetings in various parts of the UK.
  • Attend the office over minimum 4 working days, with very limited opportunity to work from home.
  • Calm and works well under pressure
Desirable criteria
  • Experience of processing and managing application to the Supervisory Bodies for Deprivation of Liberty in line with Deprivation of Liberty Safeguards Process.
  • Experience of managing tasks within the scope of welfare proceedings in the Court of Protection
  • Experience of managing tasks within the scope of care and/or family proceedings in the family court and High Court Family Division.
  • Previous experience working within the NHS

Employer certification / accreditation badges

Apprenticeships logoNo smoking policyAge positiveDisability confident leaderCare quality commission - GoodArmed Forces Covenant Bronze Award

Applicant requirements

You must have appropriate UK professional registration.

The postholder will have access to vulnerable people in the course of their normal duties 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

Apply online now

Further details / informal visits contact

Name
Jacek Borek
Job title
Associate Director for Safeguarding
Email address
[email protected]
Telephone number
07780726766
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