Specialty Doctor in Eating Disorders ARFID Pathway

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 East London Community Eating Disorders Service for Children and Young People (CEDS-CYP) is a dynamic and exciting multidisciplinary team including Therapies (family therapy, clinical psychology, assistant psychology), Medical (psychiatry and paediatrics), Nursing (mental health and paediatric nursing), Dietetics, Support Workers and Administrative and Operational staff. Our team covers the East London boroughs of Tower Hamlets, Newham and City & Hackney and operates a Hub and Spoke model, working closely with local acute Trusts, particularly Paediatrics.

The ARFID Pathway is a dedicated, community-based specialist pathway within CEDS-CYP for children and young people aged 8–18 with Avoidant/Restrictive Food Intake Disorder (ARFID) or suspected ARFID. It delivers early, evidence-based, multidisciplinary assessment, consultation and brief intervention (a structured, time-limited 6–8 session model incorporating FBT-ARFID and CBT-AR approaches), supported by MDT formulation.

The pathway addresses the gap between paediatric and mental health services, reduces fragmentation of care and prevents avoidable escalation to acute hospital or Tier 4 services. It provides equitable access for complex presentations, including children and young people with neurodevelopmental conditions, sensory sensitivities and physical health comorbidities.

Main duties of the job

The Specialty Doctor will be an important part of the ARFID Pathway within CEDS-CYP. This is an interesting and exciting job offering regular joint and collaborative working with other members of the team to assess and treat children and young people with ARFID and their families. The post holder will provide high-quality, evidence-based mental and physical health assessments and contribute to treatment, including medical monitoring where required. This will include professional and practice development to ensure high-quality, client-centred care.

The post holder will work closely with the Consultant Paediatrician for the pathway and the wider CEDS-CYP consultant psychiatry team, as well as dietetic, nursing and psychology colleagues, and will gain valuable liaison skills through working with community and acute paediatric teams. The post holder will also participate in the CEDS-CYP duty rota, as agreed with the supervising consultant.

There is also the opportunity to be involved in audit, service evaluation, QI projects and research according to personal developmental goals. If interested, there is the opportunity to take on a therapy case under supervision, for example in systemic family therapy, family-based treatment or CBT.

Working for our organisation

ELFT as an Employer

The Trust Employs 6,000 People In a Variety Of Full-time And Part-time Posts. The Trust Is Committed To Making The Trust An Excellent Place To Work And In Order To Improve Quality Of Life For All We Serve; The Trust Has Four Strategic Aims:

• Improving population health outcomes
• Improving the experience of care
• Improving staff experience
• Improving value – to increase our productivity, reduce waste and cut out variation in clinical practice.

Our Focus on Quality

Quality of care is the Trust’s top priority. It is at the forefront of all that we do and is firmly embodied in our mission to provide the highest quality mental health and community care in England by 2020.

Being the very best requires continual improvement – always seeking to do things better. Sometimes it involves fundamental change in the way things are done, with everyone working together sharing the same passion and commitment. Our strategy takes a whole-organization approach to quality improvement, and is built on experience and best practice from healthcare organizations and systems across the globe.

Detailed Job Description And Main Responsibilities

These posts are based in East London. A timetable of commitments will be agreed with the supervising consultant and will include mental health, physical health and therapeutic aspects to the role.

The post holder will be accountable to the ARFID Pathway Lead and the Clinical Team Leads for EL CEDS-CYP, and will be formally supervised by a Consultant Psychiatrist within CEDS-CYP [named supervisor to be confirmed]. Supervision will be offered once a week for an hour, the time to be agreed at the start of the placement. Further informal supervision, teaching and support is available from the wider CEDS-CYP consultant psychiatry and paediatric team as needed.

The central base for this post is Emanuel Miller Centre, Tower Hamlets

Person specification

Education

Essential Criteria

• MB.BS, MBChB or equivalent
• Full registration with the GMC

Desirable criteria

• Section 12 Approval
• MRCPsych

Experience

Essential criteria

• Four years of full-time postgraduate training (or equivelant gained on a part-time/ flexible basis), with at least two years being in speciality training programme in a relevant speciality/ fixed term speciality trainee in relevant speciality or;
• Equivalent experience and competencies
• Experience of working with children and adolescents
• Working in different clinical settings
• Working with people with serious and enduring mental illness

Desirable criteria

• Experience of working with young people with mental health problems of an acute and severe nature
• Experience of working in a multi-disciplinary team
• Experience of eating disorders

Knowledge

Essential Criteria

• Child and adolescent mental health disorders and their management
• Mental Health Legislation
• Outcomes measurements
• Experience of pharmacological treatments
• Risk assessment and risk management
• Understanding and knowledge of the role voluntary organisations
• Healthcare Governance

Skills

Essential criteria

• Excellent communication skills, verbal, non-verbal and written
• Develop effective working relationships
• Function autonomously as well as being a team player
• Assessing, formulating and prioritising patients’ needs
• Apply research and theory to practice

Desirable criteria

• Evidence based service development
• Skills and a range of therapeutic interventions and psycho-social treatment options

Other

Essential criteria

• Ability to cope effectively under pressure and in stressful situations
• Courteous and respectful of patients, families and carers
• Assertive, independent, flexible
• Capable of multi-disciplinary and inter-agency working

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 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

East London NHS Foundation Trust has achieved its third consecutive ‘Outstanding’ rating from the Care Quality Commission; the first Community and Mental Health Trust to achieve this rating for a third time. 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 £8,000 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.

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