Alcohol Care Outreach Clinician

As a Clinician within the Alcohol Care Outreach Team (ACOT), you'll hold a caseload of 15-18 patients who are high users of emergency and inpatient services. Working alongside these patients, you'll help identify what matters most to them, support their recovery on their own terms, and reduce the unplanned hospital admissions that disrupt their lives and their health. This is assertive, relationship-driven outreach where persistence and compassion change outcomes. You'll join the team at an exciting moment. ACOT is expanding across South London including Lewisham, Bexley, Greenwich, and Bromley -- as part of a regional initiative integrating care across acute hospital sites and community services. You'll be helping to build something new. You'll be assigned a primary hospital at one of our participating sites:

• Queen Elizabeth Hospital, Woolwich
• Lewisham Hospital
We'd encourage you to share your site preferences on application and at interview. While we'll do our best to take these into account, final placements are determined by service capacity and need. Travel to the teams main base in Southwark will be required weekly and ss the team grows, some cross-site working across the wider area should also be expected as service needs dictate. The role also offers the chance to develop your leadership: you'll provide day-to-day supervision and support to Band 5 clinicians as delegated by senior colleagues, offering guidance and oversight as they grow in the role,
• Manage a small caseload of clients with complex and multiple needs, including assessment, care planning, implementation, and regular review.
• Conduct assertive outreach visits in the community, including attending clients' homes and other agreed locations, to maintain engagement and support those reluctant to access services.
• Proactively engage clients in alcohol treatment pathways, including structured psychosocial and/or pharmacological interventions, using motivational and trauma-informed approaches.
• Act as an advocate for clients--supporting access to services related to housing, benefits, physical and mental health, and social care--while helping remove barriers to engagement.
• Undertake dynamic risk assessments to ensure the safety and wellbeing of clients, staff, and volunteers in varied community and hospital-based settings
• Maintain up-to-date and accurate clinical documentation, sharing relevant information with partner agencies to ensure coordinated care and risk management.
• Support and supervise volunteers and contribute to informal guidance for Band 5 colleagues, ensuring safe and effective involvement across the service.
• Contribute to service evaluation, quality improvement, and research projects aligned with the AAOT's evidence-based model.
• Participate in regular supervision, appraisal, and ongoing professional development, including fulfilling all mandatory training requirements.
  
  South London and Maudsley NHS Foundation Trust (SLaM) provide the widest range of NHS mental health services in the UK as well as substance misuse services for people who are addicted to drugs and alcohol. We work closely with the Institute of Psychiatry, Psychology and Neuroscience (IoPPN), King's College London and are part of King's Health Partners Academic Health Sciences Centre. There are very few organisations in the world that have such wide-ranging capabilities working with mental illness. Our scope is unique because it is built on three major foundations: care and treatment, science and research, and training.
By coming to work at SLaM, you will gain experience of being part of an organisation with a rich history and international reputation in mental health care. You will have access to professional development and learning opportunities, and have the chance to work alongside people who are world leaders in their field. SLaM delivered more than 14,000 training experiences in 2014; providing an extensive range of learning opportunities for staff at all levels. In addition, our working relationship with King's Health Partners allows those working at the Trust to get involved in academic research.