Mental Health Practitioner

To deliver community mental health support, symptom management, triage and care navigation to clients through Primary Care Networks in Leeds.

The post-holder will be required to carry out assessment and formulation of mental health needs in order to assist patients towards increased self-management of anxiety and depression symptoms and better tolerance of distress. The role will also involve identifying opportunities to support individuals with their mental health by helping them to access appropriate community support, encourage behavioural and lifestyle changes, and enable and empower patients to become actively involved in their own wellbeing.

The role combines the skills of triage/assessment/care navigation/psychological support. Key to the role will be the ability to utilise psychological formulation (i.e. construct meaning out of mental distress) and build trusting relationships quickly whilst motivating individuals to make sustained changes., The duties and responsibilities of the post will include:

Referrals, triage & assessment

Accept referrals of patients with chronic and/or mild to moderate common mental health problems (predominantly anxiety, depression, and OCD) via agreed protocols within the GP Practice.

Use SystmOne/EMIS patient management system (after training) to record referrals, assessments and outcomes.

Identify and manage cases where complexity and/or severity are present, including triaging referrals and signposting to appropriate mental health and crisis support.

Use therapeutic skills where appropriate to help patients to contain and manage acute emotional distress, where it does not pose a risk.

Complete a comprehensive and holistic assessment of need for those referred to the service within an agreed timeframe, in order to determine the most appropriate help and support.

Develop an understanding of the particular issues presented, including any complicating social factors (physical health, employment, housing, substance misuse etc), the patient's sense of what support would be helpful and realistic, and the patient's readiness to engage with connecting services.

Offer consultation, advice and decision support to primary care colleagues.

Hours and days: Part time (21 hours per week). Working days to be agreed and dependent on service need. Wednesday is a compulsory working day. Please not that this is a fixed term contract post to cover maternity leave.

We have a unique opportunity for a Mental Health Practitioner to join Northpoint on a fixed term basis. This role will involve working across GP Surgeries, with Hybrid working to deliver community mental health support, symptom management, triage and care navigation to clients through Primary Care Networks in Leeds.

Northpoint Wellbeing is part of the primary care mental health service (Leeds Mental Wellbeing Service), commissioned by Leeds CCG. This exciting partnership, launched in November 2019, delivers an integrated service offering mental health support for people with common mental health problems. Together, our partnership helps thousands of people in Leeds to increase their resilience and live their best lives within their community.

The Primary Care Mental health Service covers all the Primary Care Networks across Leeds. Primary Care Networks (PCNs) bring together a group of neighbouring GP practices to cover a population of 30,000 to 50,000 patients. Member GP practices benefit from economies of scale as they collaborate to provide services with an expanded primary care team - including these Mental Health practitioner roles - taking pressure off GPs