About the job

Job summary

We would like to invite you to broaden your clinical experience by adding mental healthcare for serving military personnel to your career portfolio. In this civilian post you will be delivering occupationally focused mental healthcare within the Ministry of Defence. Experience of working with military populations would be welcome but it is by no means a necessity. Your interest, passion and dedication are more important!

If you are an experienced Band 6 or Band 7 Community Mental Health Practitioner, with qualifications in delivering NICE-recommended interventions to adults of working age, we would welcome your application for this post. We offer numerous benefits, multi-disciplinary support, an interesting working environment, opportunities to develop your own areas of interest or expertise and management responsibilities. Our organisation actively supports and encourages diversity and welcomes those who can bring a fresh perspective and professional drive to new challenges.

The post is based at  Defence Primary Healthcare (DPHC) RAF Akrotiri, Cyprus which will be the main work location. We support a variety of working patterns and will aim to help you achieve a good work-life balance. As a dispersed service there will be some requirement for travel to support attendance at national events, for example, our annual symposium.

This position offers 37.5 hours per week as a full time only post.

Job description

The Senior Community Mental Health Practitioner will work autonomously within a multi-disciplinary team to provide timely, high quality, flexible and individualised care packages. There are opportunities to co-ordinate complex care for a defined caseload, run group programmes, supervise colleagues, educate others and develop services. The post holder will require specialist risk assessment and treatment skills, along with an interest in developing an understanding of occupational roles and associated risks.

 Are you looking for a change of working environment? Come and join us to make a difference to the lives of those in the Armed Forces.

Person specification

Main responsibilities of the role include but are not limited to:

• Providing clinical supervision to all team members both individual and group on a monthly basis.
• Providing initial assessment and formulation of the mental health needs for referred patients,
  planning, implementing, and evaluating care with a high level of autonomy.
• Regularly providing emergency patient assessment during daily working hours, as per local agreement, on a rota basis, in order to prevent where possible unnecessary admission to inpatient facility.
• Routinely giving advice and recommendations to medical officers about all matters of mental health, care and treatment including hospital admission advice and making recommendations on General Practitioner (GP) prescribing of medication for mental health disorders.
• Continued clinical intervention and managerial guidance for an identified, varied and often complex caseload, the needs of which can be safely met within the clinical time available, and the clinical expertise possessed.
• To be Duty Out Of Hours (OOH) mental health practitioner, on rotational basis as per OOH policy (roughly 1 week in 6)

Please refer to the attached Terms of Reference for a full list of duties.

Benefits

Being part of the Civil Service entitles you to a wide range of fantastic benefits. Including flexible working arrangements, generous annual leave allowance and attractive pension options.

• A culture encouraging inclusion and diversity
• Access to the NHS Pension Scheme
• Free parking
• Access to Primary / Secondary school and clubs 
• Access to a church of different faiths
• Access to gym, medical centre, barbers, dentist
• On Site swimming pool
• Assistance with relocation to Cyprus including full relocation expenses for the successful candidate
• A generous Cost of Living Allowance (COLA)

Things you need to know

Selection process details

This vacancy is using Success Profiles (opens in a new window), and will assess your Experience and Technical skills.

The sift for this post will be conducted based on your uploaded CV .

Must have ability to work at an advanced level of psychotherapy (Level 7 qualification).

You will be required to show evidence of the following in your CV;

• Registration  with NMC or HPC, Level 7 (minimum PGDip in a psychotherapy such as CBT).
• Providing clinical supervision 

The sift will be completed within 5 working days of the vacancy closing date. Interviews will be held via MS Teams  on a date to be confirmed.

The interview will be conducted on the following NHS Competencies;

• NHS Health & Wellbeing 2 (HWB2) - Assessment and care planning to meet Health and Wellbeing needs
• NHS Health & Wellbeing 6 (HWB6) - Assessment and treatment planning
• NHS Health & Wellbeing 7 (HWB7) - Interventions and Treatments.
• NHS General 6 (G6) - People Management

At the interview stage you will be tested against a case study (Vignette), this will be broken down into 2 parts. Part 1 is sent by email to the candidate 15 mins before their interview, part 2 is shared via email during the interview (candidate has 5-10 mins to read).

The case study is based on a set of questions shared with the candidate in the case study.

This post requires an Enhanced Disclosure and Barring check for England and Wales.  

Whilst you will be a permanent member of the MOD, you will be subject to the normal overseas posting lengths and you will have an obligation to return to an MOD position in the UK after your overseas posting. This is not a Specially Recruited to Episkopi, Cyprus position. At the end of a tour no guarantees can be given that you will return to your previous or preferred location in the UK. This may mean the mobility obligation for mobile grades may be enacted where there is no suitable post at an individual’s preferred location. 

There is no requirement to deploy as this is met by our uniformed personnel but you will form the continuity of care required by our patients when based at home. 

Our chosen candidate and their dependants will be expected to have a medical and be deemed to be medically supportable in Episkopi, Cyprus. 

Please see the following link on the assessment of support needs:  Assessment of support needs for accompanied assignments overseas - GOV.UK (www.gov.uk) 

There will be no reimbursement for any travel expenses for the interview. 

All employees joining Ministry of Defence who are new to the Civil Service will be subject to a 6-month probation period (unless otherwise advised) effective from the employment start date. Successful candidates must meet the security requirements before they can be appointed. The level of security needed is security check. 

Please ensure you demonstrate that you have the required skills, knowledge, experience, qualifications and memberships in your CV and that you have saved it, making sure that any reference to your personal details have been removed from your CV prior to submitting your application.  

If found successful for this position, you will be required to provide evidence of your immunity to Hepatitis B. Failure to provide evidence of your immunity may result in the offer of employment being withdrawn. 

Successful candidates must meet the security requirements before they can be appointed. The level of security needed is security check. 

To be considered for this role, qualifications and memberships detailed must be held in full, prior to submitting your application.

Access to the NHS pension scheme is available to the successful candidate.

This post also attracts COLA (Cost of Living Allowance). The post offers full relocation expenses to the successful candidate. 

As a result of the changes to the UK immigration rules which came into effect on 1 January 2021, the Ministry of Defence will only offer sponsorship for a skilled worker visa under the points-based system, where a role has been deemed to be business critical. 

The role currently being advertised has not been assessed as business critical and is therefore NOT open to applications from those who will require sponsorship under the points-based system. Should you apply for this role and be found to require sponsorship, your application will be rejected, and any provisional offer of employment withdrawn. 

The Civil Service embraces diversity and promotes equality of opportunity. There is a Disability Confident Scheme (DCS) for candidates with disabilities who meet the minimum selection criteria.  

If you need to advise us that you need additional help or reasonable adjustments for the recruitment process, please contact dbscivpers-sgdmsresourcingteam@mod.gov.uk.

Feedback will only be provided if you attend an interview or assessment.

Security

Successful candidates must undergo a criminal record check. Successful candidates must meet the security requirements before they can be appointed. The level of security needed is security check (opens in a new window).

See our vetting charter (opens in a new window). People working with government assets must complete baseline personnel security standard (opens in new window) checks.

Nationality requirements

This job is broadly open to the following groups:

• UK nationals
• nationals of the Republic of Ireland
• nationals of Commonwealth countries who have the right to work in the UK
• nationals of the EU, Switzerland, Norway, Iceland or Liechtenstein and family members of those nationalities with settled or pre-settled status under the European Union Settlement Scheme (EUSS) (opens in a new window)
• nationals of the EU, Switzerland, Norway, Iceland or Liechtenstein and family members of those nationalities who have made a valid application for settled or pre-settled status under the European Union Settlement Scheme (EUSS)
• individuals with limited leave to remain or indefinite leave to remain who were eligible to apply for EUSS on or before 31 December 2020
• Turkish nationals, and certain family members of Turkish nationals, who have accrued the right to work in the Civil Service

Further information on nationality requirements (opens in a new window)

Working for the Civil Service

The Civil Service Code (opens in a new window) sets out the standards of behaviour expected of civil servants.

We recruit by merit on the basis of fair and open competition, as outlined in the Civil Service Commission's recruitment principles (opens in a new window). The Civil Service embraces diversity and promotes equal opportunities. As such, we run a Disability Confident Scheme (DCS) for candidates with disabilities who meet the minimum selection criteria. The Civil Service also offers a Redeployment Interview Scheme to civil servants who are at risk of redundancy, and who meet the minimum requirements for the advertised vacancy.