We are recruiting for two part-time Specialty Doctor posts for our Didcot and Wantage South Oxon Adult Community Mental Health teams.
You'll undertake comprehensive psychiatric assessments, deliver evidence-based treatment, and work collaboratively with patients and their families to support recovery. You will manage a varied caseload, providing care for routine, urgent, and emergency referrals, while working closely within a multidisciplinary team under Consultant supervision.
The role offers a diverse clinical experience, including conducting mental state examinations, prescribing in line with NICE guidance, contributing to triage and Mental Health Act assessments, and delivering three clinics per week (new and follow-up patients). You will also liaise with referrers, provide timely clinical documentation, and contribute to service development, clinical governance, audit, and quality improvement initiatives.
This is an excellent opportunity to be part of a supportive team that values teaching, professional development, and innovation in line with national mental health strategies. Section 12 approval (or eligibility) is desirable.
Join us and play a key role in delivering high-quality, patient-centred mental health care in the community.
Undertaking assessments, providing treatment and working with patients and their families. The specialty doctor is expected to work closely with other members of the team and to provide a range of assessment and treatment services.
Provide assessment and liaison with the referrer, including consulting to the referrer as required, management and treatment of patients under the supervision of a consultant. This includes: psychiatric evaluations and mental state examinations and prescription of appropriate treatments in line with NICE guidance. Work is undertaken with the multidisciplinary team and includes both routine, urgent and emergency referrals.
Providing timely written correspondence to relevant professionals documenting assessments, ongoing management, progress, and discharge letters using Trust IT and clinical records system – training will be provided where needed.
Help triage referrals and attend MHA assessments and therefore S12 approval (or the ability to apply for it) is important.
Referrals and caseloads vary depending upon the intensity of the work. There are approximately 65-90 referrals each month to the two teams. The specialty doctor will have three clinics a week with an approximate ratio of new patients: 5 follow ups per clinic.
We have two vacancies each offering 6 sessions per week with a DCC: SPA ratio of 5:1. Please see attached job descriptions for further details.
Oxford Health is a great place to work and to be able to showcase the best of yourself when making an application please read the “candidate guide to making an application” and ensure your supporting statement is tailored to the role you are applying for and addresses any essential criteria.
As a Trust we provide physical, mental health and social care for people of all ages across Oxfordshire, Buckinghamshire, Swindon, Wiltshire, Bath and Northeast Somerset. Our services are delivered at community bases, hospitals, clinics and people’s homes, delivering care as close to home as possible. Our vision is that no matter who you are or where you are, you will tell us that you receive: “Outstanding care delivered by an outstanding team”
Our values are: “Caring, safe and excellent”
We offer a wide range of benefits designed to support your career and wellbeing. These include:
- Excellent opportunities for career progression
- Access to tailored individual and Trust wide learning and development
- 27 days annual leave, plus bank holidays, rising to 33 days with continuous service
- NHS Discount across a wide range of shops, restaurants and retailers
- Competitive pension scheme
- Lease car scheme
- Cycle to work scheme
- Employee Assistance Programme
- Mental Health First Aiders
- Staff accommodation (please note waiting lists apply)
- Staff networking and support groups hosted by our Equality, Diversity & Inclusion team
Adult Mental Health Teams (AMHTs)
There are 3 AMHTs across Oxfordshire. They are North and West (bases in Banbury and Witney), Oxford City and North East (bases in Oxford City and Bicester), and South (bases in Abingdon, Didcot, Wantage and Wallingford in Oxfordshire), with satellite clinics based throughout the county in market towns.
AMHTs in the North and West, and the South provide care 7 days per week, 7am to 9pm but the City is Monday to Friday 9am to 5 pm due to additional care available from a Crisis team. Consultants work across the week, covering 9 to 5 Monday to Friday and provide senior leadership to the team alongside the Operational Manager and non-medical Clinical Lead of each team. Staff within the AMHTs work around Consultants and catchment areas that correspond as much as possible to specific geographical areas and GP surgeries. This enables maximum familiarity with these patients and better links with the corresponding GPs in their Primary Care Networks (PCN).
The AMHT’s work closely with primary care, from where they receive most of their referrals. Our new Primary Care Hubs receive most routine referrals and AMHTs triage the remainder of referral and allocate patients for assessments, following which, patients may be taken on by members of the AMHT for acute or longer-term treatment or signposted to other services or agencies as appropriate.
To enhance the current community Mental Health pathway our service has developed Primary Care Mental Health Teams (PCMHTs) in the last 18 months in line with the Community Mental Health Framework and Long Term Plan for MH. The aim is for care to be closer to home. This Framework locates community mental health services in the center of the community, as the central pillar of mental health care, allowing all other services in the mental health care system to function more effectively’, it also challenges MH providers to make it easier for the public to access MH advice and support. Alongside this the Health on the High Street agenda which puts health service provision on the high street in vacant properties to increase accessibility of these services.
Alongside the PCMHT the offer includes a single point of access to other services which are important to maintain mental health – housing, benefits, drug & Alcohol services, CAB, health and wellbeing services – so these services could run clinics from the Hubs making these a one stop shop. The PCMHTs are based within the Keystone Hubs and will have space to provide 1:1 and group interventions, as well as having capacity to support any self-referrals walking into the Hubs. Our aim for the Hubs is that they become a welcoming and non-stigmatised venue on the high street, used by the public, community groups and those in need of MH support.
