Consultant Perinatal Psychiatrist

at  Mersey Care NHS Foundation Trust

We are delighted to be able to offer this new innovative split research and clinical post within our well established, passionate and friendly perinatal team based in Warrington, Cheshire, covering the ‘Mid Mersey’ region (Warrington, Halton, St Helens and Knowsley).
The team is part of the wider regional Cheshire and Mersey Specialist Perinatal Service and delivers high quality, evidence based care to women with mental health difficulties during pregnancy and up to the second postnatal year.
This post would be ideal for a new or established consultant looking to develop research interests within a supportive clinical team. Merseycare has recently collaborated with the University of Liverpool to create the Mental Health Research for Innovation Centre (M-RIC), the perinatal team has close links with M-RIC and a developing research strategy and the new consultant would have a key role in establishing and developing this.
The service has recently been accredited by the RCPsych Perinatal Quality Network.
Merseyside and the North West has a lot to offer for families and entertainment. There is close access to the Lake District, Dales and North Wales. There are a number of excellent schools, local beaches, sporting teams and stadiums for concerts of all varieties. A number of Art galleries and areas of beauty on your doorstep.
The consultant psychiatrist is expected to carry a caseload of the most complex cases. The majority of these will be care co-ordinated or have another team member involved delivering perinatal specific interventions.
They will also be available to provide consultation, advice and assessments to other team members and secondary community mental health services, although they are not required to act as care co-ordinator. They will be required to undertake new assessments for complex patients, provide medication and diagnostic assessments, lead CPA reviews and birth planning appointments, provide crisis and urgent reviews and lead discharges planning appointments for complex patients. The team aims to offer clinical appointments according to patient choice and need, home visits or virtual appointments are often preferred, but we also offer clinics in several locations too.
While primarily responsible for delivering a quality clinical service, the consultant psychiatrist is also expected to be actively involved in the development of the team and broader service, together with the rest of the leadership team. We have an active, ambitious and innovative perinatal service Quality Improvement programme, overseen by the Clinical Development Oversight Group, which consists of the service clinical leads and those clinicians involved in specific QI projects
Mersey Care is one of the largest trusts providing physical health and mental health services in the North West, serving more than 1.4 million people across our region and are also commissioned for services that cover the North West, North Wales and the Midlands.
We offer specialist inpatient and community services that support physical and mental health and specialist inpatient mental health, learning disability, addiction and brain injury services. Mersey Care is one of only three trusts in the UK that offer high secure mental health facilities.
At the heart of all we do is our commitment to ‘perfect care’ – care that is safe, effective, positively experienced, timely, equitable and efficient. We support our staff to do the best job they can and work alongside service users, their families, and carers to design and develop future services together. We’re currently delivering a programme of organisational and service transformation to significantly improve the quality of the services we provide and safely reduce cost as we do so.
The team also offers preconception counselling appointments; currently this is largely delivered by the medical staff and the pharmacist but this offer is being further developed in order to widen access and options.
The team joint work closely with other secondary care mental health teams (for example CMHTs and EIPs teams) to offer an equitable service to women in these teams who are pregnant or have children under 2. We aim to offer an accessible holistic MDT approach to all our women according to need.

The team also offers advice and consultation to our Secondary Community Mental Health services, (eg Crisis Resolution and Home Treatment and Early Intervention, inpatient teams) and to other professionals and organisations working with families ( eg Health Visitors, Children Social Care, Maternity etc).

• This role is a combined research and clinical role, undertaking and promoting high quality research in the perinatal period, in line with the overall Trust Research Strategy.
• The R&I department is led by the R&I director who reports to the Trust Board through the Chief Medical Officer. The team consists of the R&I Office, who manage the administration and governance of studies and the Research Delivery Team, who manage the operational support of studies in the Trust. R&I activity is also supported by Associated R&I Directors and Programme Director.
• The R&I office is led by the Senior Research Lead and Research Delivery Service is managed by the R&D manager. This workforce is there to support research studies and the allocation of support time is decided on an individual basis. The Senior Research Lead is responsible for the operational and training needs of the staff and provides research project coordination.
• The post holder will be supported by the R&I office to develop and embed research within their clinical service in the field of perinatal mental health. The support and training requirements will be personalised to the post holders research experience, expertise, and interests, the post will therefore be suitable for a new consultant wishing to pursue their academic interests . There will be an expectation that service user co-production in research will be promoted, by for example by facilitating focus groups to help inform the research agenda for the Trust.

Please refer the Job description for details