Kingston and Richmond NHS Foundation Trust offers a range of fantastic opportunities to grow your career across both hospital and community settings in south London. Whether you're looking to build new skills or take your experience to the next level, we are uniquely placed to provide the right environment to support your professional development. With colleagues working in people’s homes, in community clinics, and in our two hospitals, we have an outstanding breadth of knowledge and experience to draw from.
Our commitment to exceptional care is reflected in being the first trust of our kind in London to achieve an ‘Outstanding’ rating from the CQC for both overall quality and leadership. We exist to provide the best possible care for our patients and we do that by giving our colleagues what they need to be their best at work. We have won numerous awards from the HSJ and Nursing Times for the way we support our colleagues across all our services.
We are proud to be recognised for our outstanding cancer care, children's services, pioneering surgical teams, and exceptional rehabilitation services. Our maternity services have been rated the "Best in London" by women surveyed by the Care Quality Commission (CQC), with parents travelling to Kingston to take advantage of our considerable experience and expertise.
Our Trust values
These words are important reminders, but it’s our behaviours that tell people who we are. We expect all colleagues to bring our values to life in their work.
- Compassionate: We provide care with kindness, understanding, and empathy for all.
- Inclusive: We embrace diversity and respect the unique contributions of every individual.
- Collaborative: We foster teamwork across all levels, working together and with our partners to deliver the best outcomes.
- Inspiring: We are committed to continuous improvement and excellence in patient care, staff development, and innovation.
The Speech and Language Therapy Department at Kingston Hospital are pleased to offer this exciting role to lead and develop the Speech and Language Therapy service within Critical Care.
The successful candidate will be a strong team player, be highly motivated and flexible, with a commitment to new ways of working and have an innovative approach to patient care and service delivery.
Experience in acute and critical care is essential. The successful candidate will be able to demonstrate highly developed skills in the management of dysphagia and acquired communication disorders and be a competent practitioner with FEES, although we will consider applicants will limited experience. There will be some leadership responsibilities within the Speech and Language Therapy Department, so experience of supervising / line managing other SLTs would be an advantage. Other key responsibilities may include leading videofluoroscopy, running training sessions, deputising for the Principal SLT and covering acute medical caseload as required. The successful candidate will have post-graduate specialist experience in swallowing and communication disorders, including tracheostomy, FEES and videofluoroscopy skills. They will have a proven track record of working as an autonomous SLT within a multi-disciplinary team. You should have recent and relevant experience in an acute setting with a high volume, high throughput caseload and be able to work well under pressure.
To provide an effective and evidenced-based Speech & Language service to adult in-patients with communication and / or swallowing difficulties within the critical care, medical and surgical settings. This will include patients on ventilators and with tracheostomy tubes in-situ. The post-holder will be expected to co-ordinate seamlessly with other SLT teams within the Trust to provide prompt and timely management of acute patients, according to the demand of services. The post holder will work as a highly specialist, autonomous practitioner, independently prioritising and managing an in-patient caseload. The role will also have responsibility for overseeing the management of caseloads of more junior members of staff within the SLT department. Participation in the development and monitoring of the SLT service to medicine, surgery will be required.
Kingston and Richmond NHS Foundation Trust has four key values and we want to employ and work with people who share these values and demonstrate behaviours that support them. They are:
Compassionate - We treat everyone with kindness, understanding and empathy
Inclusive - We are respectful, fair and open, valuing everyone’s unique contribution
Collaborative - We work together across our teams and with our partners and are helpful, positive and supportive
Inspiring - We strive for the best for patients, communities, staff and partners and are always learning and improving
We welcome conversations about flexible working from day one, including options such as adjusted hours, compressed hours and other arrangements. If flexibility matters to you, please talk to us - we’ll be happy to explore what’s possible for the role and the service.
Your recruitment team
The NHS South West London Recruitment Hub is your dedicated recruitment team, here to support you at every stage of the process. If you have a query, please contact us:
E: [email protected]
Your application
Please ensure your supporting statement clearly reflects the job description and person specification, as shortlisting will be based on these criteria.
Please refer to the latest UKVI guidance and ensure you have the appropriate right to work before applying for this role.
Use of Artificial Intelligence
We kindly ask that you avoid using AI tools to draft your application. We value authentic, individual responses that reflect your own experience and communication style.
References
Please provide a minimum of 3 years’ employment and/or education history, including professional email addresses (not personal accounts such as Hotmail or Gmail). If you cannot provide these, please inform the interview panel to avoid delays in pre-employment checks.
Closing date
To help us manage recruitment efficiently, some vacancies may close early once we have received a sufficient number of applications.
Shortlisting
If you are successfully shortlisted, you will be contacted by email or SMS from the South West London Recruitment Hub. Please check your registered TRAC email regularly.
Application feedback
If you do not hear from us within four weeks of the closing date, please assume your application has not been successful on this occasion.
Safeguarding and DBS Checks
We are committed to safeguarding children and vulnerable adults. For roles with direct access to these groups, an Enhanced Disclosure and Barring Service (DBS) check will be required. All staff are expected to understand and uphold their safeguarding responsibilities as part of their role.
