Consultant Psychiatrist in Forensic or LD Psychiatry

This is a replacement post which has become vacant as the previous Consultant Psychiatrist has retired.

The Forensic Outreach Liaison Service (FOLS) is a tertiary service that offers specialist advice, assessment, support and intervention to people with a learning disability and / or autism diagnosis, who pose a risk of serious harm to others. The team provides responsive consultation and liaison to other mental health and learning disability teams in the assessment and management of high-risk individuals who have offended or are at risk of doing so. The team are available across North Yorkshire and York. The service is based at Alexander House, Knaresborough and works remotely across the North Yorkshire and York area.

The team facilitates a safe transition from secure inpatient areas with a gradual transfer to secondary services where there is an identified health need or discharge from service. This will involve a period of follow up, which can include care co-ordination or co-working with secondary community teams (including mental health services) relating to the management of risk. The team provides consultation and liaison to local secondary teams in the assessment and management of risk, to avoid where possible an admission to secure care. Additionally, the team enhance the interventions provided by Secure Inpatient Services to support the patient journey and reduce length of stay.

Main duties of the job

This is a 8PA post based in the community.

NY FOLS provides a seven-day service, 9am 5pm. The team consists of: Team Lead, Advanced Nurse practitioner, 4 Community Nurses, 4 Community Support workers, psychologist and a 0.6wte Speech and Language Therapist.

NY FOLS currently has 45 active clients and care coordinate 11 of these. Approximately half of these patients are community based. Referrals into the service are through a single point of access.

The postholder will be a Consultant Psychiatrist who specialises in Forensic Learning Disability and autism providing specialist assessments, interventions and support for comorbid presentations, responsibility for the clinical supervision of conditionally discharged patients and acts as Responsible Clinician for patients discharged on Supervised Community Treatment or Guardianship.

Secure Inpatient Wards are based at Ridgeway, Roseberry Park Hospital, Middlesbrough. These wards include secure LD and ASD wards. The post-holder will work alongside an inpatient team including 14 consultant colleagues, 4 specialty grade doctors and up to 3 core trainees.

Within Health & Justice there are two other community teams in addition to NY FOLS. These include a Forensic Community Service and Secure Outreach and Transition Team. Both with a consultant colleague and a multi-disciplinary team.

We are one of the largest specialist mental health and learning disabilities trusts in the country, with an annual income of £320m and a workforce of some 6,700 staff operating from around 100 sites in Durham, Teesside, North Yorkshire and York and Selby. We provide a range inpatient and community services to 2m people living in County Durham, the Tees Valley, Scarborough, Whitby, Ryedale, Harrogate, Hambleton and Richmondshire. We also provide additional specialist services to other parts of Northern England.

We are a multi-award winning trust and are included within the Health Service Journals Best 100 Places to Work. The trust take a positive and proactive approach to support staff in their personal development and has embedded the Talent Management approach within the Trust.

Psychiatrists are essential contributors to the majority of our mental health teams. Service users expect and are justified to expect collaborative relationships with dedicated psychiatrists who work consistently as part of effective services. Our medical staffing shortage puts strain on services and puts strain on workforce wellbeing and costs extend beyond the financial. The Medical Directorate and Medical Development Team are striving to improve medical workforce recruitment and retention in a variety of ways and the cornerstone of these efforts is The TEWV Charter for the Medical Workforce. (Please see attached Supporting Document).