Health Play Specialist | Northern Lincolnshire NHS Foundation Trust

Role Overview

An exciting opportunity has arisen for a highly motivated and adaptable Health Play Specialist to join our small existing team of Play Specialists at Diana Princess of Wales Hospital and to develop our new team of Play Specialists at Scunthorpe General Hospital.

• a welcoming environment for children and young people of all ages (generally up to the age of 16 years old) and promote a positive experience for all
• play opportunities and activities appropriate to the child/young person’s individual and health care needs where there may be barriers to understanding
• specific play/activity therapy when required e.g. encouraging a child/young person to express their true self and explore their feelings, overcoming any fears of being in hospital e.g. needle phobia, transitioning to adult services
• preparing children/young people for procedures and using distraction therapy
• emotional support to the child/young person, parent/main carer and extended family members
• some contribution towards assessing a younger child’s development against recommended assessment tools when requested to
• a mechanism for a child/young person and their family to feedback to the department on their experience of being in hospital and how the hospital can improve our service provision

The Humber Health Partnership is one of the largest acute and community partnership arrangements in the NHS, seeing well over one million patients every year and managing a budget of over £1.3 billion.

Made up of two Trusts – Northern Lincolnshire and Goole NHS Foundation Trust (NLAG) and Hull University Teaching Hospitals NHS Trust (HUTH) – our Partnership has significant ambitions and is committed to delivering world‑class hospital and community services for the 1.65 million people we serve.

Together we employ nearly 20,000 staff. Our five main hospital sites are Diana, Princess of Wales Hospital, Scunthorpe General Hospital and Goole and District Hospital, for NLAG and Hull Royal Infirmary and Castle Hill Hospital for HUTH.

As teaching hospitals working with the Hull York Medical School, we both lead and contribute to research in many areas – biomedical research, primary care, palliative medicine, cardiovascular and respiratory medicine, vascular surgery, cancer surgery and oncology.

We believe that by developing a diverse, inclusive, innovative, skilled and caring workforce, we can deliver excellent care to our patients and a great future for our employees, our Partnership and our community.

For more detailed information, please read the job description linked below.

As a Trust we are keen to offer and encourage flexible working opportunities to address health and wellbeing and work‑life balance for our employees. Flexible working is part of a wider commitment to improve the quality and experience of working life and we recognise that it is a key contributor for the recruitment and retention of our employees.

We therefore support and encourage open conversations around a specific working pattern to suit your work‑life balance or a multi‑role career, if it works for you and works for the role, we’ll do our best to make it happen. Local flexible working arrangements are developed in partnership between the line manager and employee in order to ensure equality of access to flexible working, as far as practicable, regardless of role, shift pattern, team or pay, based on patient/service user and staff experience, service delivery and work‑life balance of colleagues.

We are committed to creating and maintaining a fair and supportive working environment and culture, where contributions are fully recognised and valued by all and staff feel empowered to carry out their duties to the best of their abilities. As employers we are committed to promoting and protecting the physical and mental health and well‑being of all our staff. This underpins our values as set out in the NHS Constitution, supports us to be an Employer of Choice and ultimately enables our employees to support the effective care of our patients.

We strongly value the different perspectives and ideas a diverse…