Care Co-ordinator

at  South West London and St Georges Mental Health NHS Trust

To be accountable for the co-ordination of care plans for people who are in the early stages of psychotic illness between the ages of 17-35. To work closely with other members of the multi-disciplinary team. To assess health and social care needs and negotiate care plans with service users and their carers, remaining objective when working with diagnostic uncertainty. To undertake risk assessments according to Trust policy.
To ensure delivery of care plans in partnership with multi-disciplinary colleagues and a range of health and social care agencies, within the CPA structure. To engage service users and carers assertively and offer care/interventions within the least restrictive setting in normal community environments. To provide a service sensitive to age, culture, ethnicity, gender, sexuality and disability. To offer a range of evidence based psycho-social interventions and proactive 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.
To ensure Wandsworth 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. To monitor treatment, support concordance and ensure prompt action is taken to alleviate unwanted effects. To provide access to and ongoing psycho-education regarding first episode psychosis to service users and families.
To ensure basic needs are addressed i.e. housing, income, support in accessing education or training etc. To recognise the developmental needs of service users, and enable a vocational/educational assessment within a specified time of their contact with the service, and to ensure the service user is supported in progressing plans made for education, training or employment. To provide interventions, and work with other disciplines/agencies/teams in the care of service users experiencing co-morbid problems with substance use/misuse.
To engage the service user and their family in relapse prevention and crisis planning and provide and coordinate interventions that maximise the service users ability to resolve crises, remain at home and avoid the need for hospitalisation. 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 outside of normal working hours when necessary. If hospitalisation 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. To be actively involved in developing early detection strategies with a range of agencies and in developing public awareness of first episode psychosis.
To work flexibly between the hours of 8am and 8pm including occasional week-ends, as required. 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

Please refer the Job description for details