Clinical Nurse Specialist

Transformationunitgm; Greater London; On-site; GBP 56,000 - 64,000; Full time

Job summary

A healthcare trust in London is seeking a Clinical Nurse Specialist for their Perinatal Community Team. The role involves direct work with perinatal women, providing comprehensive assessments and treatment while training staff and collaborating with maternity services. Candidates should have relevant educational qualifications, experience in mental health, and skills in assessment and communication. The position offers a salary range of £56,276 - £63,176 per annum and aims to improve lives by enhancing community mental health care.

Qualifications

• Educated to degree level or equivalent.
• Evidence of continuing professional development in perinatal mental health.
• Experience working with service users with serious mental illness.

Responsibilities

• Direct work with perinatal women - assessment, treatment, planning and review.
• Training other staff.
• Liaison work with maternity services.

Skills

Assessment

Teamwork

Communication

Crisis intervention

Education

Degree in relevant field

Qualifications in therapeutic interventions

Clinical supervision training

Job description

Employer East London NHS Foundation Trust Employer type NHS Site City & Hackney Centre for Mental Health Perinatal Outpatient Town London Salary £56,276 - £63,176 per annum Salary period Yearly Closing 15/02/2026 23:59

Clinical Nurse Specialist

NHS AfC: Band 7

ELFT has long been recognised as a centre of excellence for mental and health care, innovation and improvement. So it is a very exciting time for you to come and work for us. Our mission is to make a positive difference to people's lives by improving quality of life for all we serve. Our values are: We Care, We Respect, We are Inclusive – so we are looking for people who live and breathe these qualities when supporting service users and carers, and in their relationships with colleagues in the Trust and our partner organisations.

Job overview

The Perinatal Community Team provides mental health care to families in the City and Hackney. It is a multi-disciplinary team providing psychiatry, psychology, parent‑infant psychotherapy, occupational therapy, nursing and other interventions. As a specialist service it takes on complex cases and thus carries out highly specialist work. The Perinatal Community Team has close links with the East London Mother and Baby Unit.

Main duties of the job

• Direct work with perinatal women - assessment, treatment, planning and review
• Training other staff
• Joint work with other staff
• Advice and consultation to other staff
• Liaison work with maternity services
• Linking with the Named Professionals for Safeguarding Children, Psychiatric Liaison Team and other relevant staff
• Promoting the development of perinatal mental health services in assigned locality
• supervising junior staff

Working for our organisation

Our mission is to make a positive difference to people's lives by improving the quality of life for all we serve. Our values are: We Care, We Respect, We are Inclusive – so we are looking for people who live and breathe these qualities when supporting service users and carers, and in their relationships with colleagues in the Trust and our partner organisations.

Detailed job description and main responsibilities

Kindly refer to the job description and person specification that is attached to the vacancy profile.

Person specification

Education/ Qualification/ Training

• Educated to degree level or equivalent
• Evidence of continuing professional development including recently in perinatal mental health practice and safeguarding children practice
• Qualifications/ training in specialist skills e.g. therapeutic/ psychological interventions
• Qualified non‑medical prescriber
• Clinical supervision training

Experience

• Minimum 3 years post qualification experience working with service users with serious mental illness
• Experience of multi‑agency pre‑birth planning for women with serious mental illness
• Experience of managing a caseload of service users with evidence of completing high quality assessments
• Experience of working in a complex multi‑disciplinary/ multi‑agency context
• Minimum 2/3 years’ experience working in crisis services/A&E/In Patient unit
• Experience of undertaking complex nursing and mental state, risk and needs assessments
• Experience of working in a multi‑racial/cultural community and of working with interpreters
• Experience of formal child protection processes and inter‑agency work with families
• Experience of supervising mental health professionals and/or practice teaching
• Experience of contributing to policies and procedures
• Experience of planning and delivery of training in response to identified needs

Knowledge and Skills

• Ability to liaise and offer highly specialist consultation to other agencies effectively
• Ability to contribute to and facilitate effective multi‑disciplinary/multi‑agency working
• Ability to effectively manage own clinical and administrative caseload and work under pressure at times of change
• Ability to identify, recognise and understand safeguarding children issues and refer appropriately
• Excellent communication and interpersonal skills, both oral and written
• Knowledge and understanding of diversity and equality issues and their application in perinatal mental health services
• Ability to develop and deliver training on perinatal mental health and associated issues such as safeguarding children, domestic violence
• Understanding of clinical governance and audit issues
• Up to date knowledge of evidence based practice and current developments in perinatal mental health

Making Things Better

Quality Improvement is a key part of our work to improve our services and refine how we do things. We have a global reputation for our quality improvement work and we don’t stand still! So we offer a fantastic opportunity for our staff to learn, lead and contribute towards improving our services.

We launched our Five Year Strategy in April 2018, which identified four main strategic outcomes to improve: population health outcomes, experience of care, staff experience and improve value. This complements the NHS Long Term Strategy and sets out our direction of travel.

Our Community

We provide a wide range of community health and mental health inpatient services to children, young people, adults of working age, and older adults in The City of London, Hackney, Newham, Tower Hamlets, Bedfordshire and Luton. We also provide psychological therapy services to the London Borough of Richmond, and provide Forensic services to the whole of North East London. We provide services in urban and rural settings, sometimes in our inpatient units, but mostly in the community close to where people live. Integrated care is key in making the best use of resources and providing effective care.

Aiming High

We were rated ‘Outstanding’ by the CQC in 2016, were proud to be rated ‘Outstanding’ again in 2018 and continue to be rated 'Outstanding' in 2021. We were named in the HSJ’s Top 10 best places to work in healthcare and were voted Provider Trust of the Year in 2018.

Staff and Service Users United

We strive to ensure that staff feel valued by the Trust and as they are truly pivotal in delivering better outcomes for our patients and service users. Our aspiration is to help to make ELFT the best place to work. This Trust is clinician‑led and provides the highest possible level of clinical expertise throughout its services. We pride ourselves on our service user involvement. A service user will be on your assessment centre and interview panel if you are invited to meet us.

We especially welcome people with lived experience of health difficulties, with insight and understanding of different backgrounds, cultures and lifestyles in our population as we believe that this will equip staff to deliver a high standard of care to our service users and patients.

Diversity

ELFT Is committed to being a diverse organisation and our workforce is reflective of the population and communities we serve. We believe that having colleagues with a range of backgrounds and life experiences enriches and adds value to the outcomes we have set out to achieve. Having partnered and endorsed by organisations who are representative and experts in various areas of equality and diversity, we can ensure we are meeting the pre‑set standards all the way from recruitment stage throughout the career journey of our employees by being accessible, having fair inclusive practices and a host of staff networks to support, nurture and celebrate our valued staff in the workplace.

Other reasons to apply

As a flexible working friendly organisation, we want to be sure that you can work in a way that is best for us and for our patients, and for you. Speak to us about how we might be able to accommodate a flexible working arrangement whether that’s job share, part time or another flexible pattern.

As part of the relocation scheme we presently have, the Trust could support you with offering up to £10,000 for removal and associated expenses. This is subject to change and terms and conditions apply.

AI in applications

If you use AI or other tools to assist in writing your job application, make sure you add your own personal touch— especially in the supporting information section. AI can make writing easier, but it doesn’t fully understand the position you’re applying for and might generate false or misleading information. Applications written only by AI often sound generic and may not show your real skills, knowledge, or experience. It’s important to write your supporting statement in your own words. East London NHS Foundation Trust does not recommend relying only on AI, as it could negatively impact on your chance of success in the application process.

We carefully check applications to make sure no one has an unfair advantage, and we verify all references. At the interview, you’ll be asked about your experience, so be honest and ensure everything in your application is accurate. Please remember that using AI during the interview is not allowed.

What Next?

If you like the sound of ELFT, don’t waste a moment. We sometimes close adverts early if there is a high response, so apply now!

As part of our recruitment process we may be required to share information you provide on the application form with NHS Counter Fraud Authority (NHSCFA) and/or other organisations for the purpose of the prevention, detection, investigation and prosecution of fraud or any other unlawful activity affecting the NHS. We also use third party providers to check and verify your qualifications who may be contacting you on our behalf to verify the same..

If you do not hear from us within four weeks of the closing date, please consider that you have not been shortlisted on this occasion. You must provide professional email addresses for all referees as we will contact them as soon as an offer has been made. Please note we do not request references prior to interviews. All applications made through NHS Jobs account will be processed by TRAC System. Please note that some emails may go to your spam/junk mailbox so make sure you check this regularly.

Find us online at www.elft.nhs.uk | Find us on Facebook | Follow us on @NHS_ELFT

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