Specialty Doctor – Croydon Psychiatric Intensive Care Unit (PICU) - 10PAs - Permanent

This is a substantive post for a Specialty Doctor in General Adult Psychiatry on the Croydon Psychiatric Intensive Care Unit (PICU).

The Croydon PICU is a 10 bedded male PICU situated in the Bethlem Royal Hospital. 

This is a General Adult Inpatient Psychiatry post providing experience of working with people with serious mental illness under the mental health act.  Patients typically present in great distress with a mental state and associated vulnerabilities which confer a significant level of risk to themselves or others. The PICU interfaces with triage services, inpatient acute wards, section 136 places of safety, the criminal justice system, community-based services and general medical services.

The post holder will work alongside other members of the multidisciplinary team to provide a high standard of assessment, care and treatment to a vulnerable and challenging patient group. The post provides opportunities to develop skills in dynamic risk assessment and in working with acutely disturbed patients.

The post offers a 2 sessions supporting professional activities, which allows the post holder to undertake projects related to their role and develop areas of interest. 

Main duties of the job

Clinical responsibilities

• Review and Management of inpatients and day-to-day workload of the service
• Attending ward rounds
• Carrying out risk assessments and formulating appropriate risk management plans
• Formulating care plans
• Physical health monitoring of patients – including carrying out physical examination and investigations as appropriate
• Liaising with GP’s and various other professionals/ teams within and outside SLAM including with Social services, DVLA and the Voluntary sector.
• Attending external patient meetings as appropriate
• Making safeguarding referrals
• Record keeping – including preparing reports/letters, discharge notifications/summaries and ensuring that all the relevant information gathered by you following patient contact is recorded clearly in the trust’s electronic notes (EPJS) and elsewhere as appropriate.
• Section 12 duties – which include carrying out Mental health Act and Mental Capacity Assessments for our patients and attending MH review tribunals whenever required.

8 Programmed Activities per week will be devoted to Direct Clinical Care and 2 SPAs to Supporting Professional Activity.

Working for your organisation

The South London and Maudsley NHS Foundation Trust provides the widest range of NHS mental health services in the UK across four South London Boroughs: Croydon, Lambeth, Lewisham, and Southwark.

It has 230 community, inpatient, and outpatient-based services. The Trust has a broad range of staff in all disciplines with the widest range of skills and interests that provides many opportunities development.  It provides mental health services to the people of Lambeth, Southwark, Lewisham, and Croydon, as well as substance misuse services for people in Lambeth, Bexley, Greenwich and Wandsworth, and specialist CAMHS services for Kent. We also provide tertiary specialist services to people from across the UK and have a number of partnerships with clinical services and educational programme in Europe, the Middle East and China.

The Trust has 4,800 staff. We treat 64,000 patients a year in the community across 74 community sites, and provide inpatient care to 3700 people a year, in 786 beds across 8 inpatient sites. It has close links in education and research with the Institute of Psychiatry and Guy's, King’s, and St Thomas' School of Medicine, both of which are part of King's College London. This close collaboration involves working to ensure that developments and research feed directly into clinical practice. Its academic links with King's College London.

Detailed job description and main responsibilities

Overall Responsibilities

The post-holder will take an active role in the care of patients on the ward and in drawing up risk assessments and care plans which will address the patients’ psychiatric, physical, and social needs. They will carry out detailed psychiatric assessments of patients as clinically indicated to allow accurate diagnoses and contribute to their treatment plans, including pharmacological management of psychotropic medication. Good communication will be undertaken with other health or social care professionals and any carers working with the patient. The post-holder will regularly attend ward rounds and forge good working relationships with other psychiatrists across the Directorate in order to encourage appropriate referrals and assure a cooperative approach to the care of patients. They will be linked in with other psychiatrists and supported to join peer groups. They will also provide consultation and advice to members of the MDT. The post-holder will participate in service evaluation and information-gathering exercises designed to gain a better understanding of the functioning of the service in order to monitor performance and underpin future service developments. The Trust is committed to continuous learning and Quality Improvement work and the post holder would be expected to actively engage and promote team engagement with changes and improvement work. 

General/ Managerial and other responsibilities:

• Participation in service evaluation, audit, research, and quality improvement.
• Participation in service development/clinical governance activities.
• Participation in the team’s business meeting and any other relevant team/Trust meetings.
• Participation in academic activities including team-based teaching, case presentation, and teaching medical/other students attached to the service.
• Participation in reflective practice sessions. 

Support, Supervision, CPD and Leave/cover arrangements:

• Annual appraisal and job plan meeting.
• The post holder will be expected to be on site and reachable during working hours.
• The post holder will also have access to Study leave in keeping with the Specialty doctor’s guidance and be supported to achieve the CPD requirements within the framework of appraisal and PDP requirements.
• Any annual or study leave will need to be authorised in advance by the Line Manager.
• The Trust has mandatory training requirements, which the post holder will be expected to comply with in a timely fashion.

For further details / informal visits contact: Dr Andrew Howe - Job title: Interim Associate Medical Director Croydon - Email address: andrew.howe@slam.nhs.uk