Healthcare Assistant

Transformationunitgm; Cumnor; On-site; GBP 40,000 - 60,000; Full time

Job summary

A healthcare provider in the UK seeks a Healthcare Assistant to join their forensic mental health team. The role involves supporting service users in a therapeutic environment, ensuring high standards of care and participating in their recovery journey. Applicants should possess excellent communication skills, compassion, and resilience, ideally with a background in mental health. Opportunities for career progression and additional benefits such as NHS discounts are offered.

Benefits

Excellent opportunities for career progression

NHS Discount

27 days annual leave

Employee Assistance Programme

Qualifications

• Background in mental health or passion for forensic mental health.
• Ability to support service users' recovery and rehabilitation.
• Commitment to high-quality care.
• Experience in a secure environment is an advantage.

Responsibilities

• Provide therapeutic and person-centred care to service users.
• Maintain a safe and supportive environment.
• Participate in care assessment and planning.

Skills

Excellent communication skills

Compassionate attitude

Resilience

Education

Experience supporting individuals with mental health needs

Job description

Healthcare Assistant – Forensic Services - Oxford

Band 3

Oxford Health NHS Foundation Trust has been rated as Good by the Care Quality Commission (CQC).

We are a responsive and innovative Foundation Trust that places our values of Caring, Safe and Excellent at the heart of everything we do. We take great pride in our staff and believe that investing in you is key to us achieving our vision of outstanding care delivered by outstanding people.

We work with a wide range of partner organisations to deliver care and support to people in their own homes and from a number of hospitals and community bases. We focus on delivering care as close to home as possible for people of all ages across Oxfordshire, Buckinghamshire, Swindon, Wiltshire, Bath and North East Somerset.

We actively support anti-racism, equality, diversity, and inclusion so, if you’re excited about this job opportunity and you meet our Trust values, but feel unsure about applying, then please get in touch and we will be happy to have a conversation with you.

We are also committed to increasing diversity in the workforce, that is why we actively encourage applications from those groups of people who are currently under-represented, which include amongst others: people with disabilities; men from all socio-economic backgrounds; people from diverse ethnic backgrounds; and people from the LGBTQIA+ community.

Good luck and we hope to hear from you.

Job overview

We are seeking highly motivated, compassionate, and resilient healthcare professionals who have a background in mental health or a genuine passion for working within a female forensic mental health setting to join our multi-disciplinary team at Thames House.

Thames House is a 26-bedded low secure unit for women, supporting individuals with a diagnosis of mental illness and/or personality disorder. Many of our service users have previous experience of the criminal justice system. The service comprises a 10-bedded High Dependency Unit and a 16-bedded Low Dependency Unit, offering structured, recovery-focused care in a safe and therapeutic environment.

You’ll work a rotating shift pattern to cover our 24/7 service. This will be a mixture of early and late day shifts with one night week in every four.

Main duties of the job

We have established very effective ways of working with the patients to help them identify and reach their goals, whilst keeping them safe and supporting them onwards to a new life in the community.

We'll need you to have excellent communication skills with positive attitude. We share a caring, non-judgmental and inclusive attitude, committed to the delivery of safe, high-quality care.

Key responsibilities include:

Supporting service users’ recovery and rehabilitation through therapeutic and person-centred care

Maintaining high standards of care within a safe, secure, and supportive environment

Contributing to the assessment, planning, implementation, and evaluation of care and treatment for individuals with mental health needs

Demonstrating professionalism, compassion, and resilience when working with complex and challenging presentations

This role attracts an RSU *Lead payment of £1,446 per annum, in addition to your annual salary.

Working for our organisation

Oxford Health is a great place to work and to be able to showcase the best of yourself when making an application you are encouraged to read the “candidate guide to making an application” which is attached to all roles. Please include details around qualifications (including years these were gained particularly if we need to assess for clinical roles that these are still valid) and ensure that the supporting statement is tailored to the role you are applying for and addresses the essential criteria found in the JD.

As a Trust we provide physical, mental health and social care for people of all ages across Oxfordshire, Buckinghamshire, Swindon, Wiltshire, Bath and North East Somerset. Our services are delivered at community bases, hospitals, clinics and people’s homes, delivering care as close to home as possible. Our vision is that no matter who you are or where you are, you will tell us that you receive: “Outstanding care delivered by an outstanding team”

Our values are:“Caring, safe and excellent”

At Oxford Health we offer a wide range of benefits designed to support your career and wellbeing. These include:

• Excellent opportunities for career progression
• Individual and Trust wide learning and development
• 27 days annual leave, plus bank holidays, rising to 33 days with continuous service
• NHS Discount
• Lease car scheme
• Employee Assistance Programme
• Mental Health First Aiders
• Staff accommodation (waiting lists may apply)
• Staff networking and support groups

Detailed job description and main responsibilities

You will contribute to the assessment, planning, implementation, and evaluation of care and treatment for people experiencing mental health difficulties.

Completion of PEACE Teamwork Training and other mandatory role-specific training is required .

Recruitment Day: what to expect on the day

If you are successfully shortlisted, our Recruitment Day will be on Wednesday 25 February at Unipart House in Oxford is designed to give you a real feel for life at Oxford Health. You'll have an extended period to meet our teams, learn about our services, and show us what you can do.

Please note that this recruitment day is by invitation only and is open exclusively to applicants who have successfully passed the screening stage.

Person specification

Question 1.

• Please explain your interest in working at Thames House and in a female forensic mental health setting.

Question 2.

• Please describe any experience you have (paid or voluntary) supporting individuals with mental health needs or explain how your skills and qualities would transfer to this role.

Question 3.

• Working in a secure mental health environment requires compassion, professionalism, and the ability to manage challenging situations safely. Please provide an example of how you have demonstrated these qualities.
• All new starters have a thorough induction process, both local and Trust wide, which aims to create a positive supportive working environment allowing new employees to learn key elements of their role over a reasonable timescale.
• Appointment to this post is subject to the trust receiving satisfactory references covering 3 years of employment or study. Please ask your referees to respond promptly to reference requests.
• We’re advocates of flexible working and many of our roles offer a range of employment options to help you balance your work and personal life.
• Employees are expected to undertake mandatory and statutory training related to their role.
• We are ambitious in our pursuit of excellence, driven by the belief that a fair, just and fully inclusive organisational culture enables our teams to deliver the best quality of care and services possible and we work hard to ensure that our diverse workforce reflects the communities that we serve.
• We welcome applications from all sections of the community, are an Equal Opportunities employer with a number of internal networking groups to support our employees and where possible will always look to make reasonable adjustments in order that you can fulfil the role to recognise your full potential. All our employees are committed to demonstrating through their behaviour our core values – safe, caring and excellent.
• We are committed to safeguarding and promoting the welfare of children and vulnerable adults, we expect all staff and volunteers to share this commitment.
• Oxford is a world-renowned centre of excellence for research. Oxford Health works closely with the University of Oxford department of Psychiatry and the Department of Primary care, has a Biomedical Research Centre dedicated to improving mental health and the NIHR Clinical Research Facility at the Warneford site. The Trust also hosts the NIHR Applied Research Collaboration (ARC) which carries out applied research that directly impacts patient health and wellbeing

Employer certification / accreditation badges

This post is subject to the Rehabilitation of Offenders Act 1974 (Exceptions) Order 1975 (Amendment) (England and Wales) Order 2020 and it will be necessary for a submission for Disclosure to be made to the Disclosure and Barring Service.