Job overview

Hello, my name is Sammy. I’m an Occupational Therapist and I’m the clinical lead of the Specialist Autism Team within LSCFT. Our team was first established in May 2021, during the pandemic which proved to be a very unique start to our service. Having been in operation nearing 18 months now, we remain relatively new and are continuing to learn and develop. Within this time we have supported over one hundred autistic people to avoid an unnecessary hospital admission, for this reason we have been shortlisted for the Health Service Journal Awards this year.

We are a very caring team and pride ourselves in being creative and innovative and being driven to offer a service which is genuinely person centred. By this, I refer to us being a service which is led by the individuals whom we support. Every approach and intervention offered is designed to meet individual need and preference. Through this approach we are continually learning, developing and findings different ways of working, to meet the needs and wishes of the individuals we work with. For this reason we have team development sessions each week and each team member plays a vital role in sharing knowledge and information.

If you’re reading this advert this role may be of interest to you. If you have a whole host of experience, great! If not, then please don’t let this put you off considering this role. Having a keenness to learn and a motivation to use and adapt your transferrable skillset is all that we ask you to bring.

Main duties of the job

The specialist autism team works closely with mental health, social care colleagues, advocacy and community services. We work between the hours of 9-5 Monday to Friday, with some flex needed on occasion, to meet individual need. Our service is commissioned to prevent unnecessary hospital admissions (Outreach) and where an admission to hospital may be appropriate, we strive to support a therapeutic admission (Inreach) and timely discharge (Discharge Coordination) in conjunction with the multidisciplinary team.

We work as a tertiary service, working with autistic individuals who are under the care of secondary mental health services and to date we have supported autistic people and their support networks who have experienced a number of challenges including high levels of anxiety, unforeseen changes within their life and sensory and communication differences which haven’t yet been fully explored and understood.

As a result of new investment we are able to advertise a number of posts in our team: these are suitable for registered professionals from all health and social care backgrounds. We currently have Nurses, Occupational Therapists, Social Workers and a Psychologist in the team.

If you have any questions, please don’t hesitate to get in touch. If you feel it would be beneficial, we can also arrange informal visits to meet with myself and/or members of the team.

Working for our organisation

Lancashire & South Cumbria NHS Foundation Trust provides a range of services including secondary mental health care across this area. Specialist provision comprises inpatient child and adolescent mental health services, perinatal mental health and forensic services including low and medium secure care.

The Trust also provides a range of physical health and well-being services in the community alongside a range of partners in the Lancashire, Cumbria and Sefton area. 

Lancashire & South Cumbria Foundation Trust encourages flexible working, we believe that a positive work/life balance benefits NHS employees through improved health and wellbeing. We would consider working patterns such as; term time, part time, compressed hours, flexi-time and career breaks. We encourage applicants to state clearly on their application forms this request and discuss these options at interview.

For more information please visit our website via Lancashire & South Cumbria NHS FT.