Specialist Practitioner Connection
At a glance
- Band
- Band 6
- Contract
- Permanent
- Pattern
- Full-time, Part-time
- Posted
- 21/08/2026
- Closes
- 06/09/2026
Sponsorship verdict
This advert explicitly states that sponsorship is not offered.
The source advert contains explicit wording ruling out sponsorship for this specific role. Consider other live roles at the same band from sponsorship-friendly trusts.
“Please note visa sponsorship for this role is unfortunately not available. Ensure you hold valid right to work in the UK and will not require sponsorship if successful.”Quoted verbatim from the source advert
Role summary
This role is for experienced Mental Health Nurses, Social Workers, or Occupational Therapists to join the Connection team, a 24/7 mental health crisis service. The post involves conducting telephone and face-to-face mental health assessments, providing brief clinical interventions, and offering advice and support to patients, carers, and emergency services. It also includes supervising mental health support workers and coordinating urgent responses. The team is based at St Ann's Hospital and offers professional development opportunities.
Essential criteria
- Registered practitioner to degree/diploma level supplemented by post registration diploma level specialist training and/or short courses or demonstrable extensive experience in the relevant specialty
- Membership of the relevant Professional Body
- Learning and Assessing in Practice Qualification or equivalent practice assessors training
- Evidence of recent professional development in an up to date portfolio
Desirable criteria
- Non-Medical Prescriber (if professionally appropriate)
- JOB SPECIFIC EXPERIENCE
- Experience working as a practitioner
- Experience of specialist working
- Experience of managing change
- Experience of developing specialist programmes of care for an individual or groups of patients/clients and of providing highly specialist advice
- Ability to prioritise and organise workload effectively
- Recent previous experience within a comparable role
- MANAGERIAL / SUPERVISORY
- Experience of providing clinical supervision and mentoring to junior staff
- Experience of devising and delivering training
- INFORMATION TECHNOLOGY
- Experience of using electronic patient / service user record systems
- Able to analyse data and produce reports using Microsoft Excel and Word
- PERSONAL QUALITIES/ATTRIBUTES
- Experience of planning and organising complex activities, e.g. organise own time and that of junior staff and learners, planning off duty rotas and undertaking discharge planning involving co-ordination with other agencies.
- Knowledge and understanding of legislation relevant to practice
- Demonstrable leadership qualities and the ability to perform as a role model
- ADDITIONAL REQUIREMENTS
- Demonstrable skills in written and spoken English to a standard which enables the post holder to carry out the full range of duties and responsibilities of the role effectively.
- KNOWLEDGE, SKILLS AND TRAINING
- Registered practitioner to degree/diploma level supplemented by post registration diploma level specialist training and/or short courses or demonstrable extensive experience in the relevant specialty
- Membership of the relevant Professional Body
- Learning and Assessing in Practice Qualification or equivalent practice assessors training
- Evidence of recent professional development in an up to date portfolio
- Non-Medical Prescriber (if professionally appropriate)
- JOB SPECIFIC EXPERIENCE
- Experience working as a practitioner
- Experience of specialist working
- Experience of managing change
- Experience of developing specialist programmes of care for an individual or groups of patients/clients and of providing highly specialist advice
- Ability to prioritise and organise workload effectively
- Recent previous experience within a comparable role
- MANAGERIAL / SUPERVISORY
- Experience of providing clinical supervision and mentoring to junior staff
- Experience of devising and delivering training
- INFORMATION TECHNOLOGY
- Experience of using electronic patient / service user record systems
- Able to analyse data and produce reports using Microsoft Excel and Word
- PERSONAL QUALITIES/ATTRIBUTES
- Experience of planning and organising complex activities, e.g. organise own time and that of junior staff and learners, planning off duty rotas and undertaking discharge planning involving co-ordination with other agencies.
- Knowledge and understanding of legislation relevant to practice
- Demonstrable leadership qualities and the ability to perform as a role model
- ADDITIONAL REQUIREMENTS
- Demonstrable skills in written and spoken English to a standard which enables the post holder to carry out the full range of duties and responsibilities of the role effectively.
Useful to know
Agenda for Change 2024/25 pays Band 6 at £37,338 – £44,962 a year, across England.
This advert: £39,959 – £48,117 — outside the standard scale; check for HCAS/London weighting.
Posted 17d ago · Closes in 0d
Applications close soon — apply now if this is a fit.
Full advert · preview
Dorset HealthCare University NHS Foundation Trust
Specialist Practitioner Connection
The closing date is 06 September 2026
Job summary
We are looking for experienced professionally registered, Mental Health Nurses, Social Workers or Occupational Therapists with a genuine passion for supporting those in mental health crisis, to complete the recruitment to our Connection team. We value all our team and offer a financial recruitment and retention premium on this post.
Connection is moving forward and this is an exciting time to join us for the next stages of our service development; increasing face to face community assessment work, and working collaboratively with partner agencies to ensure people in mental health crisis receive the right support, in the right place, at the right time.
Based at St Ann's Hospital, with a sea view from the office, Connection is Dorset's 24/7 open access mental health crisis service. Access Mental Health Dorset
This is a diverse role with new challenges each day: Direct clinical assessments, advice and support, supervise our fantastic mental health support workers, give clinical advice to other agencies and emergency services, co-ordinate urgent and emergency responses, and liaise with a range of internal and external services.
We are committed to professional development and support, offering internal and external training/education pr
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