Young Crisis Hub
Lead Mental Health Nurse
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Lead Mental Health Nurse (Complex Care Packages)
Reports to: Head of Clinical Services
Location: Harlow, Essex
Open to: RGN, RMN
Contract: Looking for 3-6 months booking (could be open to permanent)
About the Role
We deliver bespoke complex care packages for children and young people with significant mental health needs, including those with high-risk presentations, restrictive care arrangements, and multi-agency involvement.
The Lead Mental Health Nurse holds clinical oversight of a defined caseload of packages, making sure care is safe, evidence-based, proportionate, and delivered consistently by the teams around each young person.
This is a hands-on clinical leadership role rather than a desk-based one. You will spend significant time in the settings where care is delivered, working alongside support teams, modelling practice, and intervening where risk escalates.
Key Responsibilities
Clinical Leadership
- Hold clinical accountability for a portfolio of complex care packages, including assessment, care planning, review, and discharge or step-down planning.
- Complete and maintain clinical risk assessments, positive behaviour support plans, and crisis and contingency plans, reviewing them after every significant incident.
- Provide direct clinical input where a package requires it, including de-escalation, mental state review, physical health monitoring, and medicines oversight.
- Act as the clinical point of escalation for the teams delivering care, including out-of-hours where on-call applies.
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People and Practice
- Provide clinical supervision, reflective practice, and competency sign-off for nurses, support workers, and healthcare assistants working on the packages.
- Induct and train teams on individual young people's plans before they start on a package, and assure ongoing competence.
- Lead post-incident reviews and debriefs, and translate learning into changes to practice.
Governance and Compliance
- Work within CQC fundamental standards and, where packages sit within regulated children's settings, within the Children's Homes Regulations and Quality Standards.
- Maintain accurate, timely, and defensible clinical records, and support audit, quality assurance, and regulatory inspection activity.
- Oversee medicines management practice, including administration, storage, audit, and error reporting.
- Lead on safeguarding within the caseload, escalating in line with local authority procedures and internal policy.
- Contribute to the reduction of restrictive practice, including oversight of restraint, seclusion, and any deprivation of liberty arrangements.
Stakeholder Work
- Act as the clinical face of the service with commissioners, placing authorities, social workers, community CAMHS, education, family, and advocates.
- Attend and contribute to professionals' meetings, care reviews, MDTs, and court or DoLS related processes where required.
- Support the assessment of new referrals, advising on whether a package can be delivered safely and what staffing and clinical input it needs.
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Person Specification
Essential:
- Registered Mental Health Nurse (RMN) with current, unrestricted NMC registration.
- Post-registration experience in CAMHS, complex care, learning disability, forensic, or acute mental health settings.
- Demonstrable experience supporting people with high-risk presentations, for example, self-harm, ligature risk, aggression, absconding, or eating difficulties.
- Experience of clinical risk assessment and care planning, and of supervising or leading others.
- Strong working knowledge of the Mental Health Act, Mental Capacity Act, safeguarding frameworks, and information governance.
- Confident working autonomously across multiple sites, with sound judgement under pressure.
- Enhanced DBS on the update service, or willingness to obtain one.
- Full UK driving licence and access to a vehicle.
Desirable:
- Experience of deprivation of liberty arrangements or care for young people subject to restrictive interventions.
- Training in a recognised de-escalation or restrictive intervention model, and experience as a trainer.
- Experience of CQC or Ofsted inspection, and of preparing evidence for regulators.
- Experience working with placing authorities and commissioners in an independent provider setting.
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