Oxleas NHS Foundation Trust • Bexleyheath, Kent DA6 8DX

Clinical Specialist Occupational Therapist | Oxleas NHS Foundation Trust

About this role

Are you a passionate and experienced Occupational Therapist looking for a leadership role within acute mental health services for Older Adults? Oxleas NHS Foundation Trust is seeking a highly motivatedBand 7 Occupational Therapistto join our dedicated team in the Oxleas Intensive Home Treatment Team (IHTT). As aBand 7 OT, you will play a key role in bothclinical and leadership capacities, helping to shape and enhance the occupational therapy provision across our directorate services for Older Adults

Providing specialist occupational therapy assessments and interventionsto service users experiencing acute mental health crises.
Acting as akey member of the acute and crisis services management team, leading and contributing tostrategic service developmentsandquality improvement initiatives.
Offeringexpert advice and guidanceto management teams on the role and function of occupational therapy within acute mental health care.
Supportingservice development activitieswithin the wider directorate and contributing tostrategic planningfor occupational therapy.
Deputising for the directorate head of profession, ensuring high-quality service delivery and professional leadership.
Facilitatingaccess to employment, vocational training, education, and volunteering opportunitiesto support service users' recovery and rehabilitation.

To provide an Occupational Therapy service to clients of the Intensive Home Treatment Team. The purpose of the home treatment team is to assess and intensively treat older people at home, in order to prevent admission to hospital or to facilitate timely discharge from in patient care. This will involve completing generic and specific OT assessments, devising treatment plans and coordinating discharge from the service to the CMHT and other relevant services. To liaise with the ward manager, consultant and acute occupational therapists in co-ordinating discharges from hospital, ensuring that people have the short-term appropriate support to enable them to live independently in the community.

To provide clinical supervision to Occupational Therapy staff (qualified and unqualified) within the IHTT and also across the Older Adult OT services within the directorate. To work autonomously within professional guidelines and within the overall framework of the service’s policies and procedures, utilising research skills for audit, policy, service development and research within the area served by the team/service.

To provide leadership across the Occupational Therapy services in Older Adults, supporting the development of protocols and policies, as well as treatment interventions (in line with current Evidence Base) and linking in with Trust and Directorate forums to support local service provision and quality of care agendas.

Oxleas offers a wide range of NHS healthcare services to people in community and secure environment settings. Our services include community health care such as district nursing and speech and language therapy, care for people with learning disabilities and mental health care such as psychiatry, nursing and therapies. Our multidisciplinary teams look after people of all ages and we work in close partnership with other parts of the NHS, local councils and the voluntary sector and through our new provider collaboratives. Our 4,300 members of staff work in many different settings including hospitals, clinics, prisons, secure hospitals, children’s centres, schools and people’s homes.

We have over 125 sites in a variety of locations in the South of England. In London we operate within the Boroughs of Bexley, Bromley Greenwich and into Kent. We manage hospital sites including Queen Mary’s Hospital, Sidcup and Memorial Hospital, Woolwich, as well as the Bracton Centre, our medium secure unit for people with mental health needs. We are the largest NHS provider of prison health services providing healthcare to prisons within Devon, Dorset, Bristol, Wiltshire and Gloucestershire, Kent and South London. We are proud of the care we provide and our people.

Our purpose is to improve lives by providing the best possible care to our patients and their families. This is strengthened by our new values:

We’re Kind
We’re Fair
We Listen
We Care
To actively support the Directorate Occupational Therapy lead in the overall development of the OT service within the Acute & Crisis Directorate to demonstrate effectiveness in providing a high-quality assessment and intensive treatment service for older people with mental illness.
To undertake new assessments and co-ordinate crisis interventions which will ensure the older person is supported at home whilst meeting their mental health needs. In appropriate cases this will involve aiming for the prevention of admissions to hospital.
To manage a complex clinical caseload, which will involve positive risk taking and managing high risk/crisis situations within a range of settings.
To work as a member of the MDT
To lead on the development of evidence-based OT practice
To provide OT specific assessment & interventions via groups & individual work related to:

-occupational performance

-occupational needs

To support service development across Older Adults services within the directorate.
To lead/participate in research/audit activities within OPMH
To supervise the work of junior OT staff within the team and across the Older Adult services in the directorate as per the supervisory structure.
To facilitate OT students on fieldwork placement.
Contribute to and carry out risk assessment & risk management plans
To provide specialist OT advice to the MDT
To work independently without direct supervision
To be an OT specialist and have in-depth knowledge of OT assessment & interventions for the client group
To provide leadership for Older Adult MH OTs
To represent Occupational Therapy at a Directorate Level in relevant forums and management meetings
To contribute to the maintenance and development of the Trust wide OT service
To undertake identified generic responsibilities for an agreed percentage of time
To work within the social inclusion agenda
To develop and establish standards of OT practice within specialist clinical area
To actively contribute and participate in multi-disciplinary development across the Trust linked to clinical specialism
To provide training input to the Trustwide OT in-service training programme and other Professionals
To work closely with other OT clinical specialists across the Trust.

This advert closes on Thursday 28 May 2026

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