Highly Specialist Speech and Language Therapist / Team Lead

We have an exciting opportunity for an experienced Speech and Language Therapist in the role of Band 7 Highly Specialist Speech and Language Therapist - Site Lead based at Lincoln County Hospital. This is a 9 month fixed term contract to provide maternity leave cover.

The SLT service provides timely assessment and treatment across all general acute wards for patients with swallowing and communication changes, to support with safe management of dysphagia, recommendations for ongoing treatment and supporting hospital discharge.

The specific ICU SLT service was established in 2022 within the multidisciplinary team on the Critical Care units, providing a 6-day service to patients, and regularly working jointly with physiotherapy, dietetic, nursing, and medical colleagues in providing holistic therapeutic assessments & interventions.

For Critical Care, across the 2 sites there is a total of 25 beds. 16 beds at Lincoln County Hospital and 9 beds at Pilgrim Hospital providing patient care at Level 2 and 3 , flexed according to patient demand.

The SLT team input to patients with acquired communication and feeding/ swallowing disorders on the critical care pathway, including patients with a tracheostomy in situ., The post holder will be required to oversee the clinical work of SLTs and SLTAs on Acute Wards / Critical Care, by managing, training, and supporting less experienced colleagues as required. They will provide highly specialist SLT input and support to patients and their families as indicated and be a regular and consistent clinical presence, holding their own caseload of inpatients as required by service demand.

The post holder will contribute to the leadership of the wider service through attendance at monthly Leads meetings with SLT Leads from relevant specialties, and to the leadership of Critical Care through shared attendance at monthly Critical Care Clinical Governance meetings and ward management meetings.

Applicants are required to have current/recent (within the last year) experience of working on an inpatient / critical care unit with adults with acquired communication and feeding/ swallowing disorders. Applicants are required to possess competencies in tracheostomy and instrumental dysphagia assessment including videofluroscopy and /or FEES.

There is an opportunity for a Band 6 role if you do not hold/cannot evidence the above competencies.

Part-time hours would be considered for this post if that is your preference.

To discuss the role further or if you have any queries, please liaise with Amy Evansamy.evans@nhs.net (Clinical Services Lead) or Jennifer Burnettjennifer.burnett5@nhs.net (Adult SLT Operational Lead), LCHS recognises the increasing demand for more flexibility in working practices in order to accommodate the personal goals and commitments that employees experience at different stages during their working lives. Flexible working opportunities such as part-time working, compressed hours, job shares, and hybrid working models can help staff to balance their personal and work commitments. Arrangements can be put in place if it can be shown that the needs of the individual can be balanced with those of the service and the impact on other team members, enabling the Trust to recruit and retain skilled staff, raise staff morale, reduce absenteeism and respond to changing service needs more effectively.

Lincolnshire Community Health Services NHS Trust is in the top 25 per cent of all community trusts for overall staff engagement in the 2021 NHS National Staff Survey.