AMHP Lead

We are seeking to recruit a band 7 AMHP to join the Bedfordshire and Luton Countywide AMHP Service on a permanent position. It is an excellent opportunity for an experienced or newly qualified AMHP, who is ambitious about service developments and joint working partnerships. Working as an AMHP Lead for the Service, you will be responsible for providing routine and urgent Mental Health Act assessments (MHA) under part 2 of the MHA (1983). You will be expected to provide triage support for the AMHP service, leading on day to day operational activities of the AMHP service on a rota basis and supporting the AMHP Operational manager to ensure the service delivers on its objectives. You will also provide and offer training, advice and consultation to multidisciplinary colleagues, regarding the use of mental health law and least restrictive options; to ensure the timely delivery of an appropriate, safe, effective, and responsive and well led AMHP Service that is caring and maximizes people's statutory rights. The AMHP Service carries out this function on behalf of the Local Social Services Authorities (LSSAs) in Bedfordshire and Luton - Luton Borough Council (LBC), Bedford Borough Council and (BBC) and Central Bedfordshire Borough Council (CBC) under s75 arrangements., You will be required to work closely with team members, service users, carers and other relevant stakeholders to support the continued development of the AMHP Service across the county; ensuring that the achievement of best quality and performance standards are met, in line with service user and carer expectations, ICB requirements and Trust objectives. This will include reinforcing the values and expectations of the organization through collaborative and dynamic engagement with service users and carers that is both supportive and encouraging in nature. As an AMHP Lead, you will undertake a AMHP Lead role, triage process and allocation of referrals to duty AMHPs, ensuring daily allocated work is completed and a report is completed at the end of the day for system partners. You will be supported to develop your leadership, management and clinical practice skills, by providing a program of continued professional development, reviewed on regular basis to ensure your developmental needs are met. You will be required to work closely with the Operational manager to ensure systems and pathways are in place to ensure timely and safe service provision., AMHP Lead you will have daily operational management responsibility for continually improving the quality and performance of the team. The list below is not exhaustive but reflects the main duties of the post. As AMHP Lead you will work collaboratively with the AMHP Operational Manager to do the following:

• To manage the effective delivery of all functions of the team, ensuring that robust arrangements are in place to support service users, carers and partner organisations, and that the effective management of human, financial and estate resources is in place to achieve Trust objectives.
• To support the continued efficient and effective management of the team, providing leadership and supervision to other AMHPs. The post holder will be responsible for the management of the team, overseeing and reviewing of all AMHP referrals and the allocation of other AMHPs to consider undertaking assessment under the MHA on behalf of the LSSA.
• With authorized signatory and budgetary responsibility you will need to support the achievement of financial balance in the team, making the best use of your financial resources to achieve positive clinical outcomes for service users and carers. This will include the management of the AMHP rota, via Health Roster and providing senior level sign off regarding the use of private ambulances.
• Part of your budgetary responsibility will be to work with the Service Manager to meet Directorate led annual CRES requirements.
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• You will maintain a clinical role with approximately 60% of your time allocated to conducting complex MHAAs and supervising, coaching and supporting other AMHPs with their MHA assessments, ensuring that high quality standards are maintained by all members of the team. Taking the lead on making complex judgments, the time allocated to clinical duties will be dependent upon the needs of the team and to maintain clinical skills. The remaining 40% of the AMHP Lead role will be dedicated to managerial duties and will include providing supervision, managing performance, meeting attendance, supporting the development of service policies, procedures and joint working protocols, health roster/ rota management, recruitment/ retention activities and the provision of teaching to AMHP candidates and other teams.
• You will take a lead role in maintaining team systems and processes for the effective operation of the team, including audits in relation to clinical effectiveness and quality and the development of actions plans in light of findings.
• You will ensure the physical environment is conducive to the delivery of high quality care by ensuring there are clear systems for:
• Undertaking assessments in safe and secure environments
• Ensuring accessible systems are in place including RiO, Datix/Inphase, Summary Care Record, etc.
• Arranging for the replacement or repair of equipment and furnishing
• Undertaking safe lone working in the community
• Liaison with relevant organisations in satellite bases to ensure a clean, safe and secure environment (for example section 136 suite or other places of safety, where AMHPs may undertake assessments).
• As a line Manager for other AMHPs and junior members of the team you will support the management of human resources meeting the Trust targets for recruitment, retention, sickness levels, agency usage, supervision and appraisals.
• To ensure staff have the training and development required to meet best practice standards and achieve positive clinical outcomes for service users and carers.
• To ensure systems are in place which manages risk whilst enabling Service Users to feel:
• Safe
• Cared for
• Cared about
• Listened to and heard
• Actively involved in their care and the decision-making process
This will include formal and informal learning opportunities provided to workers in order to ensure the service provides:
• Meaningful engagement
• Assessment and management of risk
• Person-centred planning and recovery-focused care
• Excellent communication and report writing skills
• Referral to a range of relevant services
• Service User involvement, including feedback
• Evidence based and time limited interventions with clear clinical outcomes
• Provision of relevant opportunities for continued professional development, training, reflection and resilience
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• Data collection and analysis for the purpose of clinical audit and service improvement
• To take responsibility to act using professional judgment and effective problem solving when decisions have to be made in highly complex and challenging situations.
• To have an overview at all times of the team, and to work creatively and independently with staff to achieve the required standards and to regularly review the quality and performance of the team's service delivery, both formally and informally.
• To develop and maintain effective and positive internal and external partnerships across all stakeholders, including implementing clear lines of communication with all stakeholders.
• To lead on interface discussions with key operational partners, in the absence of the AMHP Operational Manager.
• To ensure systems, are in place to meet all health and social care key performance indicators relating to the team.
• To ensure clinically effective pathways are in place for your team.
• To take responsibility for the monitoring and resolution of any issues impacting on the successful achievement of the patient journey, including ensuring that effective and streamlined business processes are in place in your team.
• To advise the AMHP Operational Manager on issues that arises with regard to service delivery, quality and performance, and to provide solutions to any problem areas.
• As AMHP Professional Lead for the team you will support the delivery and development of the service, providing written reports, reviews and recommendations.
• To ensure that effective clinical and operational management and risk management processes are in place in your team.
• To deputize for the AMHP Operational Manager when required.
• As a line manager you will lead relevant clinical and administrative staff to ensure that the team meets national and local targets and that quality improvement is a constant feature in the evolution of the team.
• To use advanced effective skills, verbal, non-verbal and written when dealing with highly charged and complex situations.
• To communicate sensitively and empathetically and diffuse situations of conflict when tensions arise within staff groups or between partners.
• To ensure your team has robust quality governance arrangements in place for all service users, with a particular focus on excellent assessments, risk assessments/ management plans, sign posting and outcomes following MHA assessments.
• To ensure systems are in place for the governance of all AMHP Service referral outcomes, ensuring that referrers are given verbal and written referral outcome feedback and supported to development an alternative plan; where it is indicated that suitable alternatives to detention could be offered in order to support the least restrictive principle.
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• To ensure systems are in place to allocate AMHPs with the relevant skill set to undertake MHA assessments with relevant doctors accordingly.
• To represent the service positively and effectively in Directorate wide forums and to represent the Trust in the same manner at all times.
• To strive for excellence and the provision of the highest quality, evidence based care and clinical outcomes throughout your services, striving for accreditations where relevant with national standards.
• To ensure your team is well prepared for inspections by monitoring organisations at all times.
• To support our health and social care commissioners to implement national standards and meet their objectives for service developments.
• To ensure compliance with the Trust's Equality and Diversity Policy, supporting the delivery of the Trust's Race Equality Scheme and the Trust's duty to positively promote race equality, ensuring services are responsive to the needs of people with protected characteristics.
• To attend and contribute to relevant meetings within the service, ensuring positive engagement of all members of staff, clinical and operational management.
• To support emerging clinical developments, ensuring an understanding of these and their implications on the patient pathway are developed in the teams.
• To ensure all complaints, serious incident, safeguarding and other key processes are followed effectively in your team.
Making Things Better Quality Improvement is a key part of our work to improve our services and refine how we do things. We have a global reputation for our quality improvement work and we don't stand still! So we offer a fantastic opportunity for our staff to learn, lead and contribute towards improving our services. We launched our Five Year Strategy in April 2018, which identified four main strategic outcomes to improve: population health outcomes, experience of care, staff experience and improve value. This complements the NHS Long Term Strategy and sets out our direction of travel. Our Community We provide a wide range of community health and mental health inpatient services to children, young people, adults of working age, and older adults in The City of London, Hackney, Newham, Tower Hamlets, Bedfordshire and Luton. We also provide psychological therapy services to the London Borough of Richmond, and provide Forensic services to the whole of North East London. We provide services in urban and rural settings, sometimes in our inpatient units, but mostly in the community close to where people live. Integrated care is key in making the best use of resources and providing effective care. Aiming High We were rated 'Outstanding' by the CQC in 2016, were proud to be rated 'Outstanding' again in 2018 and continue to be rate 'Outstanding' in 2021.. We were named in the HSJ's Top 10 best places to work in healthcare and were voted Provider Trust of the Year in 2018. Staff and Service Users United We strive to ensure that staff feel valued by the Trust and as they are truly pivotal in delivering better outcomes for our patients and service users. Our aspiration is to help to make ELFT the best place to work. This Trust is clinician-led and provides the highest possible level of clinical expertise throughout its services. We pride ourselves on our service user involvement. A service user will be on your assessment centre and interview panel if you are invited to meet us. We especially welcome people with lived experience of health difficulties, with insight and understanding of different backgrounds, cultures and lifestyles in our population as we believe that this will equip staff to deliver a high standard of care to our service users and patients. Diversity ELFT Is committed to being a diverse organisation and our workforce is reflective of the population and communities we serve. We believe that having colleagues with a range of backgrounds and life experiences enriches and adds value to the outcomes we have set out to achieve. Having partnered and endorsed by organisations who are representative and experts in various areas of equality and diversity, we can ensure we are meeting the pre-set standards all the way from recruitment stage throughout the career journey of our employees by being accessible, having fair inclusive practices and a host of staff networks to support, nurture and celebrate our valued staff in the workplace. Other reasons to apply As a flexible working friendly organisation, we want to be sure that you can work in a way that is best for us and for our patients, and for you. Speak to us about how we might be able to accommodate a flexible working arrangement whether that's job share, part time or another flexible pattern. As part of the relocation scheme we presently have, the Trust could support you with offering up to £10,000 for removal and associated expenses. This is subject to change and terms and conditions apply.

ELFT has long been recognised as a centre of excellence for mental and health care, innovation and improvement. So it is a very exciting time for you to come and work for us. Our mission is to make a positive difference to people's lives by improving quality of life for all we serve. Our values are: We Care, We Respect, We are Inclusive - so we are looking for people who live and breathe these qualities when supporting service users and carers, and in their relationships with colleagues in the Trust and our partner organisations., Our mission is to make a positive difference to people's lives by improving the quality of life for all we serve. Our values are: We Care, We Respect, We are Inclusive - so we are looking for people who live and breathe these qualities when supporting service users and carers, and in their relationships with colleagues in the Trust and our partner organisations.