Community Mental Health Nurse

1. Key Tasks 1. To be accountable for assessment and care planning of a defined caseload of adults of working age. To assess health and social care needs (including accommodation, finances, and support in accessing education, training or employment) and negotiate care plans with service users and their carers, remaining objective when working with diagnostic uncertainty. 2. To prioritise time and workload, in a flexibly manner to meet community caseload responsibilities, participate in meetings and effectively develop personal skills knowledge and experience through supervision and training. 3. To undertake risk assessments, according to Trust policy. 4. To ensure delivery of care plans in partnership with multi-disciplinary colleagues and a range of health and social care agencies. 5. To participate in delivering group programmes of specific interventions 6. To engage with service users and carers assertively and offer care/interventions within the least restrictive setting, in normal community environments. 7. To help clients gain fair and equal access to services, through choice and social inclusion and being sensitive to age, culture, ethnicity and gender, sexuality and disability. 8. To offer a range of evidence based psycho-social interventions and pro-active risk management approaches to help the service user and their family to reduce and manage symptoms, high risk behaviour and other disabling effects of psychosis and enable, as far as possible, full and sustained recovery. 9. To ensure CNWL Child Protection Guidelines and procedures are fully understood by self and others. To ensure the safety needs of children are met at all times and take appropriate action when a child is felt to be at risk or in need. 10. To monitor treatment, support concordance and ensure prompt action is taken to alleviate unwanted effects. 11. To provide access to, and ongoing, psycho-education and health promotion regarding illness, disability and health to service users and families. 12. To provide interventions and to work with other disciplines/agencies/teams in the care of service users experiencing co-morbid problems with substance use/misuse. 13. To engage the service user and their family in relapse prevention and crisis planning, provide, and coordinate interventions that maximise the service users ability to resolve crises, remain at home and avoid the need for hospitalisation. 14. To deliver a flexible and responsive service through working practices that are dictated by service user/carer need and contribute to the provision of service continuity including outside normal working hours when necessary. 15. If admission to hospital becomes necessary, to provide regular, formal, joint Inpatient review to ensure the service user is transferred/discharged to the lowest stigma/least restrictive environment as soon as clinically possible. 16. To maintain standards of professional conduct at all times and observe the legal requirements of the MHA (1983), its Code of Practice, The Children Act (1989) and other relevant legislation and guidance.