Band 6 Mental Health Practitioner ARRS BNSSG - South Bristol

This new role of Specialist Mental Health Practitioner for Primary Care is fundamental to the development and leadership of innovative new teams and integrated mental health services based within Primary Care Networks (PCNs - which are networks of GP Practices) under the 'AdditionalRoles Reimbursement Scheme' (ARRS)., This service will be provided by a range of professionals including care navigators, peer support works and Mental Health Practitioners (ARRS) who will work in conjunction and collaboratively with the existing services to provide the one team approach, delivered from GP surgeries.

Practitioners will rapidly identify health and social needs and then work proactively with all relevant organisations to ensure a 'one team' approach, with the aim to prevent inequalities and improve access to services and to enhance engagement and confidence for service users.

The further aim is to work alongside and integrate service users into the local community, collaborating with service users, families and carers to ensure issues such as debt, carer fatigue, drug and alcohol issues are identified and addressed in a holistic manner, using a biopsychosocial model of care, alongside mental health assessment and treatment.

Currently, our primary, secondary and voluntary sector services can often be difficult for service users to navigate, resulting in potential delays and barriers to accessing services in a holistic and timely manner. These roles will play a vital part in providing preventative, integrated care - right from the point of access.

We are AWP (Avon and Wiltshire Mental Health Partnership NHS Trust): a diverse organisation with over 5,000 dedicated staff providing inpatient and community-based mental health care.

We provide services from a range of locations to approximately 1.8 million people living in Bath and North East Somerset (B&NES), Bristol, North Somerset, South Gloucestershire, Swindon, across the county of Wiltshire and in parts of Dorset.

Our outstanding people promote mental health and wellbeing. The expertise and resources within AWP are dedicated to a person-centred approach for those who use our services and for all employees. We recognise that happy and fulfilled employees give better care.

At AWP we actively encourage applicants from all backgrounds; we are particularly keen to encourage applications from people from Black, Asian and minority ethnic backgrounds, those with disabilities and from the LGBTQ+ community. We want people to bring their unique blend of experiences, backgrounds, perspectives and knowledge to AWP, as diversity makes us stronger.