Band 6

Sussex Community NHS Foundation Trust (SCFT) is the largest community healthcare provider in Sussex.

• 4,750 full and part time staff, with over 4,000 people registered on our bank
• 14 inpatient and outpatient locations, serving a total community of 1.3 million people
• Medical, nursing and therapeutic care provided to over 9,000 children and adults a day
• July 2018 Care Quality Commission (CQC) rating of 'Good' with 'Outstanding' features
• Stonewall Diversity Champions, and Disability Confident Employer - Level 2

We're looking for a Band 6 Speech and Language Therapist to join us in our Central locality. This busy and cheerful team covers Crawley, Horsham and Mid Sussex; about an hour south of London, and an hour north of Brighton.

This is an exciting opportunity to take up newly created post in a 16 place SLCN Special Support Facility which is part of a local nursery school in Horsham. You will be the link therapist for this provision, working closely with nursery staff and Speech and Language Therapy colleagues in the Early Years team. The role will include 0.7 WTE for the SSC, providing assessment, advice and direct therapy, training to families and setting staff, with some outreach to reception classes and other nurseries. The other 0.3 WTE will be as part of the Early Years team at Crawley Hospital, which is made up of Band 7, Band 6 and Band 5 Speech and Language Therapists, Band 3 Speech and Language Therapy Assistants, and Band 3 admin support. Depending on applications there may be some flexibility in the allocation of sessions and staff may be asked to work in other EYS settings in the locality.

Central and West have a service specification and are jointly funded by Health and Education. We are broadly divided into Early Years and Schools, with our Complex Needs team supporting children in Child Development Centres, Special Schools and a range of other settings. We use a Universal, Targeted and Specialist approach enabling parents/carers and setting staff to communicate as well as they possibly can with the children and young people in their care.

We endeavour to work as a team across the wider workforce in Early Years and School settings, keeping the children and families as our central focus at all times.

The service has an electronic patient record system and benefits from fantastic administrative support. Most importantly, we are a genuinely friendly team.

The successful candidate will receive a comprehensive induction which will lead into excellent regular supervision from Specialist Speech and Language Therapists (Band 7), along with an identified "buddy" for more informal support, and additional peer group supervision. We have clinically-focused locality meetings every six weeks, an annual Professional Study Day, an annual Allied Health Professions Celebration Day, clinical forums, a journal club, and ad hoc in-house training. This year we have secured Attention Autism Training for 25 staff and last year did the same with Nuffield Training. We also have equipment budgets which enable the service to continually improve resources for assessment and therapy.

This post may close earlier than the published closing date if sufficient applications are received.

Correspondence relating to this vacancy will be conducted electronically. Please ensure that you check your emails on a regular basis. References will be requested electronically also; please ensure you provide correct contact details for referees.

Applicant requirements

You must have appropriate UK professional registration.

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

Documents to download

• Job Description and Person Specification
• Staff Benefits Brochure
• About Us

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