Band 6 Primary Care Liaison Practitioner - Devizes

As a Primary Care Liaison Practitioner, your key responsibility will be to complete initial assessments and support conversations for people referred to our service. This includes:
+ Assessing people's mental health needs through planned appointments and duty work.
+ Managing urgent and routine referrals.
+ Formulating safe, effective and person centred plans that connect people with appropriate support.
+ Working autonomously to make independent clinical decisions whilst ensuring robust risk management.
+ Liaising closely with primary care, secondary mental health services, and voluntary sector organisations.
To succeed in this role, you will need, To provide information, proportional assessment and sign posting to patients and their family and carers presenting with mental health problems/needs in community settings.
To foster strong collaborative and trusting working relationships with the referring agent/Primary Care Health Care Professionals underpinned by an educative and solutions focussed philosophy whilst providing them with credible clinical expertise.
This may include:
The promotion and use of additional standardised assessment tools.
Promoting the importance of working with, strengths and aspirations of the person referred.
The provision of succinct formulations and recommendations (inclusive of risk management advice).
Assessment of or advice on the impact of culture and diversity.
Consideration of the respective Primary Care HCP's confidence and capability in relation to The 10 Essential Shared Capabilities (best practice in Mental Health Care).
Best practice advice and support in a broad range of conditions for people with both functional or organic mental health needs.
Promotion and recognition of the needs of family and carer/s, including various support networks and third sector agencies.
Advice and support on evaluating risk from a positive risk taking perspective.
Support and clarity on formulations within a bio-psycho-social model, including people with medically unexplained symptoms.
Identifying and ensuring specialist involvement where required.
Advice on interventions and treatments required to enable positive change.
Support and advice within Safeguarding and public protection procedures where the issues are complicated by mental health problems.
Second opinion on complex capacity assessments.
To facilitate the development of safe and effective mental health care practice within the primary care setting.
To assist the primary care and secondary mental health teams in the delivery of safe and appropriate care planning processes.
To provide a prompt response to all referrals following jointly agreed procedures and within agreed time frames.
To provide concise and effective liaison and feedback to clinical staff within secondary mental health services and Primary Care teams including advice on effective and appropriate management strategies for those patients referred to the service.
To ensure where needed that people experience a seamless transfer into AWP provider/treatment services.
To make effective use of the standard liaison approach and structure for assessments according to the SBAR (Situation-Background-Assessment-Recommendation) format.
Following assessment, to provide short- term follow up of patients where appropriate.
To contribute evidence based expertise to multi-disciplinary team care planning processes.
To provide effective communication with service users, relatives and carers, Primary Care and Secondary health services.
To advise on medication management issues.
To ensure the active involvement of carers during all stages of the assessment process.
To provide a prompt response to requests for information and advice.
To ensure appropriate communication, both verbal and written, at all stages of the consultation process.
To promote positive attitudes, mutual understanding and collaboration between non mental health staff and mental health services, users, carers, voluntary agencies, primary care and social services.
To provide evidence-based specialist advice on how best to meet the mental health needs of the population for staff of other agencies, service users and carers.
To raise awareness of the effects of physical conditions on the mental health of service users.
To assist and participate in appropriate service development forums.
To provide mentoring/ training for others in relevant practice areas, according to professional requirements, taking a collaborative approach to practice development and evidence-based care.
Demonstrate responsibility for developing own practice in line with professional qualifications and for contributing to the development of others, by making use of and providing, effective feedback, supervision, coaching and appraisal.
To adhere to the NMC professional code of conduct ensuring required skills and competencies required are maintained.
Monitor and maintain health, safety and security of self and others, undertaking assessments and taking appropriate action where required.
Develop own knowledge and practice, and contribute to the development of others, making use of available feedback, supervision and appraisal to identify appropriate areas of development for this work role, taking responsibility for accessing identified learning and training opportunities.
Lead, maintain and participate in practices which enable team working.
To maintain the single health and social care record, ensuring both paper and electronic records are kept up to date in accordance with professional and organisational standards.
To assist in the development and implementation of appropriate systems aimed at ensuring a consistent approach to assessment, communication and follow-up.
To make appropriate use of time and resources.
To participate in clinical audit and service evaluation programmes as required.
To participate in local arrangements where required to manage unexpected staff absences.
We are proud to be fostering a diverse workforce that reflects our communities. A key commitment to this is improving staff representation from Black, Asian and Minority Ethnic communities, those from the LGBTQ+ communities, people with 'lived-experience' of mental health conditions and people living with disabilities,- we are a 'Disability Confident Employer' offering a guaranteed interview to Disabled applicants who meet the essential criteria. This includes people with a variety of disabilities and neurodivergent conditions (for example autism, ADHD, sensory, physical and learning disabilities).
We encourage applications from people who wish to work on a flexible basis, recognising that flexibility may mean a range of different working patterns and hours, we do our utmost to work with our staff to meet their needs and the needs of our service users.

+ Strong clinical judgement and the ability to make independent decisions in a fast paced environment.
+ The ability to work autonomously while ensuring patient safety and effective care.
+ Flexibility to manage both urgent and routine needs.
+ Excellent communication skills to engage with people compassionately and collaboratively.
+ A proactive, solutions-focused approach to supporting people with their mental health needs.
+ Empathy and resilience to provide high quality care while navigating complex situations.

Our Primary Care Liaison Team is at the heart of connecting people with the right support at the right time.
We provide initial assessments and support conversations for people who may require secondary mental health services. Working closely with GPs, voluntary sector organizations, and both primary and secondary care, we ensure that people receive tailored, compassionate, and effective care. For example, we may meet someone who we then signpost on to support available within primary care. Or we may think that someone requires a period of support from secondary mental health services and refer them on.
This role is perfect for those who thrive in a dynamic, collaborative environment and want to be part of a team that values clinical expertise, holistic support, and person-centred care. If you're looking for a rewarding role where you can develop your skills, build strong professional relationships, and positively impact people's lives, we'd love to hear from you.
Apply today and be part of a team that truly makes a difference., Working for our organisation
We are AWP (Avon and Wiltshire Mental Health Partnership NHS Trust) a diverse organisation with over 5,000 dedicated staff providing inpatient and community-based mental health care.
We provide services from a range of locations to approximately 1.8 million people living in Bath and North East Somerset (B&NES), Bristol, North Somerset, South Gloucestershire, Swindon, across the county of Wiltshire and in parts of Dorset.
Our outstanding people promote mental health and wellbeing. The expertise and resources within AWP are dedicated to a person-centred approach for those who use our services and for all employees. We recognise that happy and fulfilled employees give better care.
At AWP we actively encourage applicants from all backgrounds; we are particularly keen to encourage applications from people from Black, Asian and minority ethnic backgrounds, those with disabilities and from the LGBTQ+ community. We want people to bring their unique blend of experiences, backgrounds, perspectives and knowledge to AWP, as diversity makes us stronger.