Detailed job description and main responsibilities

The Enfield South Locality Team is part of the Enfield Community Mental Health Services. Other teams include the Enfield North Locality Team; the Enfield Community Rehab Team; the Enfield Early Intervention Service; the Enfield Complex Emotional Needs Service; and the Enfield Crisis Resolution and Home Treatment Team.  The Enfield Community Mental Health Team for Older Adults and the Enfield Memory Service are also included.

The advertised post is for a consultant in the Enfield South Locality Team.

The Enfield Crisis Resolution and Home Treatment Team holds a caseload between on average 30 - 40 clients and works closely with the inpatient teams as part of their role as gatekeepers for hospital admissions.

The Enfield Acute Services are based at Chase Farm Hospital and include 4 inpatient general adult wards (one of which is a male PICU), a male rehabilitation ward (Somerset villa), and 3 other Older Adult inpatient wards.

Community Services have an established and close working relationship with the Psychiatric Liaison Service at the North Middlesex University Hospital, which runs a dedicated psychiatric A&E unit called “Horizon”. There are also close links with the Psychiatric Liaison Service at Barnet General Hospital. There are Health Based Places of Safety (HBPoS) at Chase Farm Hospital and Highgate, and patients from BEH also have access to the Mental Health Crisis Assessment Centre (MHCAS) provided by Camden and Islington. The Enfield Urgent Care Service is supported by the Enfield Local Authority Approved Mental Health Professionals (AMHP) service.

The Enfield Consultant body is a close-knit group of 15 colleagues, mostly holding substantive posts, which meet regularly in formal and informal meetings scheduled on a weekly basis via MS teams on a Monday. Various issues are discussed i.e. local and trust-wide managerial issues, vacancies, training concerns, etc. The Clinical Directors (CDs) and Enfield Associate Clinical Director (ACD) regularly attend this meeting and update the consultant body. Consultants are actively encouraged and supportive to take on management and leadership roles and to contribute to the broader strategic planning of the Trust. There are regular trust academic conferences (trust wide academic program on Wednesday afternoons via MS Teams) and trust corporate conferences (twice yearly).

The consultant group has an established culture of mutual support, collaborative working and shared decision making. In addition to this, the partnership holds joint Medical and Clinical Advisory Groups for all consultants, currently virtual and 2-monthly although this program is subject to review.

Consultants are expected to regularly attend the weekly consultant meeting and the weekly academic program. Whilst several CPD peer groups have formed within Enfield, the consultants are also encouraged to seek peer groups outside the organization as an opportunity to network and share experience with colleagues from other services. A monthly Balint-Group for consultants has re-started. This gives opportunity to conduct in-depth case-based discussions (CbD) required for annual appraisals and revalidation. New consultants (up to five years following appointments) are encourages to link in as a group and are supported by the Medical Leads during their induction. New consultants are also encouraged to make use of the Start Well program facilitated by the Royal College of Psychiatrists. All new consultants are given the opportunity to seek a mentor within or outside the organization as part of their job plan.

The post also comes at a time of extra resources being made available to the community services to have a broader remit to engage clients who are traditionally caught between primary and secondary care, offer help at the point of crisis (with the aim of cutting waiting times) and offering evidence based psychological treatment and physical health monitoring in line with national standards. The increased recruitment of voluntary care sector staff is with the awareness that clinical care accounts for only 20% of health outcomes, while socioeconomic, behavioural, and environmental factors determine the remaining 80%.