Job overview

Gloucestershire Wheelchair Assessment Service is looking for a therapist to join our team who is keen to develop their skills around wheeled mobility equipment and postural management to join our award winning team. If you’re successful we will provide you with the structured support and training you need to flourish. The Wheelchair Service are the proud recipients of this years Working Together award, as part of the Better Care Awards.

We are a multi-disciplinary team providing a countywide service. We’re also in the unique position where we cover clients of any age. We’ve worked hard over the last couple of years to develop and innovate to ensure we provide a prompt, efficient and effective service for our clients, while also developing a friendly, kind and supportive team culture. We complete holistic assessments with our clients considering their mobility needs as part of the bigger picture of how they want to live their life and working with them to achieve their mobility goals.

If you’re proactive, keen to achieve the best with your patients and looking for a new opportunity this could be just the role for you.

Main duties of the job

You will carry your own caseload which will be a mixture of wheelchair and posture management assessments,  working with service users eligible as medium/high/specialist need for the provision of wheeled mobility equipment (including pressure care cushions). The service is provided in a range of settings including clinics, home and educational environments and is county wide. We are an all age, all disability service so offer the unique opportunity to work with children and adults.

Our philosophy is to keep the patient at the heart of everything we do. We look for people who are willing to go the extra mile and are committed to being part of a team that delivers an excellent caring service to our patients. This is a countywide role and therefore the successful applicant must hold a full UK driving license and have access to a car for work purposes.

If you meet most but not all of the essential criteria and are keen to develop we could offer a Band 5 to 6 development role.  If joining as band 5 we will work with you to meet all the objectives needed to progress you to the B6 role. You will be gradually introduced to a broader spectrum of cases in line with working towards the National Wheelchair Managers Forum Competency Framework.  Our team will support you on throughout your journey to becoming a B6 Wheelchair Therapist within our team.

The qualification, training & experience requirements for the role are underlined in the Job Description/Person Specification.

Working for our organisation

We have a skilled and dedicated workforce of over 5000 colleagues working in a diverse range of services over 55 sites and within people’s homes. We strive to enable a welcoming workplace culture that builds and celebrates civility, inclusivity and diversity, while providing a sense of belonging and trust.

Annual staff surveys, regular Pulse surveys and other engagement opportunities provide our people with lots of opportunity to tell us about their experiences of working with us.  In the latest staff survey, 61% of colleagues gave us their views.  It was great to hear that:

• 72% of colleagues would recommend the Trust as a place to work, ranking us 1st for Provider Trusts in the South West region on this question.
• 76% would recommend the standard of care provided in our services if a friend or relative needed treatment, also ranking us 1st in the South West region.
• 81% said that care of patients and service users is the Trust’s priority, compared with an average in comparable NHS Trusts in England of 64%.

 This high-level overview shows we are in a healthy position, with higher scores than average for comparable organisations, alongside a great response rate, indicating good staff engagement.  However, we also know we have plenty of room for improvement in many areas. To that end, we continue to prioritise and invest in our commitment to genuinely becoming a Great Place to Work with consistent top-quartile performance in the annual staff survey and Pulse surveys.