Job summary
- Main area
- Psychiatry
- Grade
- NHS Consultant Pay Scale
- Contract
- 12 months (12 month fixed term - maternity cover)
- Hours
- Part time - 6 sessions per week
- Job ref
- 354-CS-21842
- Employer
- Sussex Partnership NHS Foundation Trust
- Employer type
- NHS
- Site
- Perinatal MH Service, 1-7 Station Road
- Town
- Crawley
- Salary
- £109,725 - £145,478 per annum
- Salary period
- Yearly
- Closing
- 02/03/2026 23:59
Employer heading
Consultant Psychiatrist - Fixed Term
NHS Consultant Pay Scale
Come and join us
We’re looking for people who share our values of compassion, accountability and optimism to help us provide high quality care for the patients, carers, families and communities we serve. We specialise in NHS mental health and learning disability services and we’re proud to make a difference every day.
At SPFT we put people first. We’ll do everything possible to help you feel respected, valued and included. You’ll have opportunities to learn, grow and gain new experiences to support your career, with access to lifelong learning and professional development.
We actively promote flexible working and understand how important work life balance is, especially in healthcare. Whether it’s part time hours, hybrid working or flexible start and finish times, we’ll explore what works for you and the role.
We recognise that AI is becoming part of daily life and you may choose to use it to help prepare your application. We welcome innovation but ask that anything you submit reflects your own abilities, experience and voice. AI can support how you describe your skills and experience, but it should never replace your own words as we want to get to know you.
We’re shaping a workplace where ideas are encouraged, technology supports you and everyone has a voice in how we improve. If that sounds like the kind of organisation you want to be part of, we’d love to hear from you.
Job overview
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This is an exciting opportunity for a Consultant Psychiatrist to join our Specialist Perinatal Mental Health Service in North West Sussex (Team base Crawley) providing leadership to deliver high-quality, person-centred care to women and birthing people and birthing people in Sussex. This is an established post. The post has become available due to provide fixed term maternity cover for a period of 12 months. |
Main duties of the job
The post holder will work as part of the perinatal mental health team providing specialist perinatal community mental health services for a delivered population of 4119 in North-West Sussex.
The service is commissioned to see the 10% of the delivered population, identified by midwives, GPs, obstetricians and mental health colleagues as being potentially at high risk of perinatal-related mental disorder or who suffer serious mental illness in the perinatal period. The service focus is on relapse prevention, early detection and treatment in women and birthing people and birthing people with pre-existing history of severe mental illness.
Referrals to the perinatal teams are roughly two thirds antenatal one third postnatal and come primarily from maternity services (midwives and obstetricians), GPs and Health Visitors. Daily triage takes place via a duty nurse system and weekly referral triage meetings for all new referrals are held within the teams. Urgent referrals meeting service criteria are offered assessment within 5 working days, non-urgent within 20 working days.
Working for our organisation
The post-holder will provide clinical leadership for the Specialist Perinatal Mental Health team alongside 5 other consultant psychiatrists, Dr Jenny Cooke Dr Michael Harris, Dr Michael Rutherford, Dr Alex Joy and Dr Saleema Durgahee. This vacancy has arisen due to a substantive consultant taking maternity leave.
This post completes the medical establishment of the team providing a minimum of 4.8 whole time equivalent Consultant Psychiatrists for the specialist perinatal MH service.
Detailed job description and main responsibilities
Please see job description for outlines of the main duties and responsibilities of this post. Candidates will be assessed according to the extent to which they meet the specification. It is therefore important that applicants pay close attention to all aspects of the person specification when deciding if their skills, experience and knowledge match these requirements.
Person specification
Qualifications & Eligibility
Essential criteria
- MB BS or equivalent medical qualification
- Fully registered with the GMC with a licence to practise at the time of appointment.
- Included on the GMC Specialist Register OR within six months.
- In good standing with GMC with respect to warning and conditions on practice
- Approved clinician status OR able to achieve within 3 months of appointment
Transport
Essential criteria
- Holds and will use valid UK driving licence OR provides evidence of proposed alternative.
Clinical Skills, Knowledge & Experience
Essential criteria
- Excellent knowledge in specialty
- Excellent clinical skills using bio-psycho-social perspective and wide medical knowledge
- Excellent oral and written communication skills in English
Desirable criteria
- Wide range of specialist and sub-specialist experience relevant to post within NHS or comparable service
Academic Skills & Lifelong Learning
Essential criteria
- Able to deliver undergraduate or postgraduate teaching and training
- Ability to work in and lead team
- Demonstrate commitment to shared leadership & collaborative working to deliver improvement.
- Participated in continuous professional development
- Participated in research or service evaluation.
- Able to use and appraise clinical evidence.
- Has actively participated in clinical audit and quality improvement programmes
- Ability to work in a participatory way so that shared decision making and conversations around formulation/diagnosis and ongoing care are a collaborative endeavour with the people who access our service.
Applicant requirements
You must have appropriate UK professional registration.
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
Further details / informal visits contact
- Name
- Dr Jenny Cooke
- Job title
- Consultant Psychiatrist & Perinatal Clinical Lead
- Email address
- [email protected]
- Telephone number
- 0300 304 0097
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