Specialist Physiotherapist: Critical Care
At a glance
- Band
- Band 7
- Contract
- Permanent
- Pattern
- Part-time
- Posted
- 20/08/2026
- Closes
- 02/09/2026
Sponsorship verdict
This contract type is not eligible for Skilled Worker sponsorship.
NHS Trusts cannot issue a Certificate of Sponsorship for part-time, bank, locum, zero-hours, job-share or short fixed-term (under 12 months) contracts under current Home Office rules. This applies even when the wider Trust holds a Skilled Worker licence.
Role summary
This is an exciting opportunity for a Band 7 Specialist Physiotherapist to join the Critical Care team at St Mary's Hospital, part of Imperial College Healthcare NHS Trust. The role involves providing expert physiotherapy assessment and treatment to a diverse range of critical care patients, including major trauma and neuro-surgical cases. The successful candidate will develop specialist skills in respiratory physiotherapy, ventilator weaning, and rehabilitation, while also contributing to clinical leadership, service development, and training within the department. This position requires participation in 7-day working and evening on-calls.
Key responsibilities
- Provide clinical leadership in the planning, organisation, delivery, and development of the critical care physiotherapy service.
- Undertake advanced physiotherapy assessment and treatment for complex patients within the speciality, offering expert opinions on weaning and rehabilitation.
- Manage a significant clinical caseload as an autonomous practitioner, collaborating with other agencies and health professionals.
- Maintain and develop specialist expertise, actively participating in postgraduate training for physiotherapists, students, and other healthcare team members.
- Support the development and evaluation of clinical practice through education, audit, and research.
- Be responsible for service development within the team and implement policy changes in partnership with clinical leads and MDT colleagues.
Essential criteria
- Degree (or equivalent) in Physiotherapy
- State registration with the Health Professions Council
- Evidence of CPD through maintenance of a portfolio, especially in the relevant clinical area
- Clinical Educators course or equivalent
- Significant recent clinical experience in relevant clinical area
- Evidence of a broad base of clinical experience at Band 6 level or equivalent
- Significant experience of working as an integral member of a multidisciplinary team and inter agency working
- Experience of multidisciplinary goal planning, development of care pathways and using outcome measures
- Experience of organising and implementing training programmes for therapists, MDT members, support workers, students and apprentice
- Experience of service development/change management
- Experience in implementing evidence based practice in speciality
- Experience of on-call and weekend working in an acute hospital (if required for job role)
- Competent IT skills
- Understanding of clinical governance and the implications for therapy services including experience of quality issues and audit
Desirable criteria
- Membership of the Professional Organisation
- Membership of Professional special interest groups relevant to speciality
- Relevant Postgraduate clinical qualification
- Management skills or leadership training
- Previous Band 7 or equivalent experience in relevant post
- Leadership of a therapy team
- Recent, relevant work in an NHS environment
- Experience of using clinical governance framework to monitor and improve quality of patient care
- Clinical research experience
- Experience of planning and managing service improvement activities
- Knowledge of recent NHS developments and their impact on service provision
- Advanced computer skills for presentation and data analysis
Useful to know
Agenda for Change 2024/25 pays Band 7 at £46,148 – £52,809 a year, across England.
This advert: £58,133 – £65,261 — outside the standard scale; check for HCAS/London weighting.
Posted 10d ago · Closes in 4d
Plenty of time to prepare a strong application.
Full advert · preview
Job summary
We have an exciting opportunity for a Critical Care Band 7 Specialist Physiotherapist to join our team on the St Mary's site as part of the wider critical care therapy service at Imperial College Healthcare NHS Trust.
Our friendly department is full of opportunity for a dynamic, enthusiastic physiotherapist who wishes to progress specialist clinical expertise and leadership skills within a critcal care unit within a London-based trust. This post would be based within critcal care at St Marys Hospital.
This would include a wide variety of patients on critical care including major trauma, neuro-surgical, vascular and medicine.
We are looking for an experienced Band 6 or current Band 7 Physiotherapist, with a keen interest in the field of critical care physiotherapy. You will have a wide range of clinical experience, good communication skills, interpersonal skills and a passion for delivering excellent patient centred care. You will have the opportunity to develop your specialist skills and knowledge in the areas of respiratory physiotherapy including NIV, ventilator and tracheostomy weaning and rehabilitation within the critical care.
You must be able to participate in 7 days working and evening on calls.
Main duties of the job
- To provide clinical leadership alongside the Clinical Lead Therapist in the planning, organisation, co-ordination, delivery, eval
Join the community to read the full pack, responsibilities and person-specification in one place.
Your seat is reserved — activate it
CareerHive is included with your CareerHive Skool community membership. If you haven't claimed your account yet, join the community (or sign in with the same email you joined with) to unlock the full advert, the apply link, HiveMind AI interview & application suite, your private vault, and daily sponsorship alerts.