Bank Mental Health Practitioner Prisons

Thank you for taking an interest in our Mental Health Practitioner Bank Role.

We hope that you find this overview useful and look forward to receiving your application.

Our healthcare departments operate across seven prisons each of which require a bespoke service responding to the prisoner and prison needs:

• HMP Elmley Isle of Sheppey ‘B’ Remand 1,200 (male) 24/7
• HMP Swaleside ‘B’ High Security 1,200 (male) Inc. Inpatient Unit
• HMP Standford Hill ‘D’ Open 500 (male) Standard
• HMP Rochester/HMP Cookham Wood Rochester ‘C’ 650 (male) 24/7
• HMP Maidstone Maidstone ‘C’ 500 (male) 24/7
• HMP E Sutton Park ‘D’ Open 100 (female) Standard

The seven prisons are located across three estates, Isle of Sheppey, Rochester and Maidstone, with the Isle of Sheppey prisons being a few minutes’ walk from each other and East Sutton Park approximately 7 miles from Maidstone.

As a Mental Health Practitioner you will be providing specialist mental healthcare to offenders and working as part of the Mental Health In‑Reach Team, plus wider mental health services.

You will be required to work in a psychologically minded way with offenders in achieving their agreed goals and quality health outcomes.

Our Mental Health Team provide specialist interventions at primary and secondary care level including referral management, screening assessment, triage, evidence‑based interventions, care planning and risk assessing, plus one‑to‑one and group‑work facilitation.

Our Mental Health Practitioners manage a mixed and challenging caseload and are required to perform robust assessment, screening and interventions to offenders with learning disabilities and mental health conditions. You will contribute to alternatives to inpatient admission and assisting with early discharge through the implementation of high intensity interventions and complex case management arrangements.

One of our key aims is to ensure continuity of care for an offender on ordinary location and reduce the length of stay, both in relation to prison inpatient services and external NHS/independent in‑patient services. You will work closely with community mental health teams to ensure appropriate sharing of information, continuity of care and the Care Programme Approach for all offenders as necessary.

Oxleas offers a wide range of NHS healthcare services to people in community and secure environment settings. Our services include community health care such as district nursing and speech and language therapy, care for people with learning disabilities and mental health care such as psychiatry, nursing and therapies. Our multidisciplinary teams look after people of all ages and we work in close partnership with other parts of the NHS, local councils and the voluntary sector and through our new provider collaboratives.

Our 4,300 members of staff work in many different settings including hospitals, clinics, prisons, secure hospitals, children’s centres, schools and people’s homes.

We have over 125 sites in a variety of locations in the South of England. In London we operate within the Boroughs of Bexley, Bromley Greenwich and into Kent. We manage hospital sites including Queen Mary’s Hospital, Sidcup and Memorial Hospital, Woolwich, as well as the Bracton Centre, our medium secure unit for people with mental health needs. We are the largest NHS provider of prison health services providing healthcare to prisons within Devon, Dorset, Bristol, Wiltshire and Gloucestershire, Kent and South London.

We are proud of the care we provide and our people.

Our purpose is to improve lives by providing the best possible care to our patients and their families. This is strengthened by our new values:

• We’re Kind
• We’re Fair
• We Listen
• We Care

To provide specialist mental healthcare to service users and to work as part of the Mental Health In‑Reach Team and wider MDT.

To deliver a range of specialist interventions at primary and secondary care level; to include referral management, screening assessment, triage, and evidence‑based interventions; care planning and risk assessing; one‑to‑one and group‑work facilitation; managing a mixed and challenging caseload.