Senior Psychiatric Liaison Nurse

Lambeth Mental Health Liaison Service - Senior Mental Health Liaison Nurse

Here at the Lambeth Mental Health Liaison Service, we are excited to advertise a permanent full-time senior mental health liaison nurse position within our team.

The primary function of this role is to work as a highly experienced mental health practitioner, carrying out front-of-house specialist assessments (i.e. the front door triage model) within the Emergency Department (ED) as part of the Mental Health Liaison Team (MHLT).

The Psychiatric Nurse in Charge (Psych NIC) is responsible for:

• Ensuring all those who present to the ED with an acute mental health need, receive timely and appropriate care, in the right place, at the right time, by the right person.
• Actively identifying and triaging those presenting to the ED with an urgent or emergent need for mental health care, psychological support and/or those with substance misuse problems.
• Working alongside the ED team to ensure appropriate medical clearance wherever appropriate.
• Acting as a shift coordinator to ensure that all patients are prioritized in terms of need and allocated to the team appropriate to that need of the patient and the skill mix on shift.

The Psych NIC Will:

• Be based on the emergency floor for much of the shift providing direct formal and informal support to the ED teams and visiting agencies.
• Offer face-to-face support, directing referrals from the emergency floor to the most appropriate assessment pathway i.e. via the front door triage model, direct to the PLN's for full assessment or determining if further medical assessments need to be completed inline with our parallel assessment protocol.
• Work alongside the enhanced care team (ECT) in making decisions about enhanced observations for mental health patients.
• Act as part of the ED response team for patients detained on S136 or police referrals, and work to ensure timely throughput in department in line with the GSTT CODE10 protocol.
• Work alongside ED triage teams to evaluate fitness for assessment, and support visible parallel working.
• Use the front door triage model and from being visible and approachable, assist referrers in signposting to other services – including UCC, GP, IAPT, etc.
• Assist the PLN assessment team working as the Psychiatric Nurse in Charge.
• Take a lead role within the liaison service, providing support and guidance within the service but also within their specialist lead area, i.e. safeguarding, etc.
• Provide clinical supervision with the band 6 (assessing) psychiatric liaison nursing team.