Substance Misuse Lead

Are you ready to unlock your potential within a challenging, creative and fast paced work environment? Do you want to escape your current job role and work with people to build positive and productive lives, whatever their past? Now is the time to break into offender healthcare and develop your career.
As part of the South West Prison Healthcare contract awarded to Oxleas NHS trust in 2022, we are able to expand recruitment and are looking for a compassionate, knowledgeable and motivated Substance Misuse Lead to join our friendly team at HMP Portland.
Our healthcare team have a real impact on promoting health and well-being to those in prison and we pride ourselves on using skills and strategies that instil hope for patients future resettlement back into the community. We directly deliver Mental Health, Physical Health, Pharmacy and Clinical Substance Misuse in an integrated healthcare delivery model to provide effective and responsive care to improve wellbeing and support better outcomes in the future.
As part of our substance misuse team, you will enjoy all the benefits of NHS AfC employment (inc pension) with the opportunity to work within a forward-thinking service, who encourage career and personal development to all staff to increase their clinical and interpersonal skills.
As our Substance Misuse Lead for HMP Portland, you will be a source of expert advice to our clinicians, service users and their carers. You will be providing specialist nurse interventions to patients with complex substance misuse problems.
You will be assessing patients with substance misuse needs, prescribing accordingly, discussing all treatment options (which will also include non-pharmacological treatments) and provide specialist advice and guidance relating to their management, care and onward pathways within the prison and in preparation for release back into the community.
You will lead our nurse-led substance misuse service and develop a specialist practice-based clinical model of care.
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
The post holder will exercise a high degree of personal and professional autonomy, make complex and critical judgments, and have decision making skills to satisfy the expectations of the role.
To participate in the comprehensive assessments of service users referred to the team, including specialist assessments of service users requiring non-medical prescribing, ensuring that a medical history and medication history, is undertaken and implemented where required.
To prescribe and change medications within area of speciality and competence.
To strategically develop, deliver, clinically audit and evaluate the substance misuse services for the prison. This will include development and implementation of appropriate referral/care pathway for service users identified as having a dual diagnosis.
To demonstrate and provide robust expert clinical leadership to junior staff with a sound understanding of evidence-based nursing practice to provide a pro-active approach to ensure quality and outcome driven practice on a day-to-day basis.
To support the development of monitoring systems, to promote the development of evidence-based practice in the specialist field and to promote research as appropriate.
To participate and lead as directed in the managerial and professional clinical supervision programme, to ensure all junior staff receive appropriate supervision, training and annual appraisal, and to ensure that it becomes an integral part of team practice.
To ensure the implementation of effective and appropriate service user centred care plans and consistent delivery throughout the prison.
To promote engagement with the Mayor's Office for Policing and Crime (MOPAC) dual diagnosis programme with service users.
The post holder will work collaboratively with the Operational Manager, Clinical Leads, GPs and other clinicians to meet and review service needs as required. To actively promote service user healthcare through the provision of information, formal presentations, general networking and liaison with prison, statutory and other non-statutory agencies