Are you ready to unlock your potential within a challenging, creative and fast paced work environment? Do you want to escape your current job role and work with people to build positive and productive lives, whatever their past? Now is the time to break into offender healthcare and develop your career.
Due to our ongoing success as the healthcare provider at HMP Portland, we are currently expanding opportunities due to additional commissioned services. We are looking for a compassionate, knowledgeable and motivatedEarly Days in Custody Practitioner (RMN) to join our friendly team at HMP Portland.
Our healthcare team have a real impact on promoting health and well-being to those in prison and we pride ourselves on using skills and strategies that instil hope for patients future resettlement back into the community. We directly deliver Mental Health, Physical Health, Pharmacy and Clinical Substance Misuse in an integrated healthcare delivery model to provide effective and responsive care to improve wellbeing and support better outcomes in the future.
As part of our mental health team, you will enjoy all the benefits of NHS AfC employment (inc pension) with the opportunity to work within a forward-thinking service, who encourage career and personal development to all staff to increase their clinical and interpersonal skills.
As an Early Days in Custody Practitioner (EDiC) you will be responsible for ensuring that new prisoners are supported during their first 14 days in the prison. This will include ensuring they have access relevant healthcare offers and managing their general health and wellbeing whilst inprison. You will be required to identify the wider needs of patients through thecompletion of a comprehensive assessment, and working in partnership with them to co-produce a written care plan that addresses their health and social care needs.
You will also be required to cover some work for the wider mental health team which will include; care planning, caseload reviews and administering antipsychotic depot medication.
You will be responsible for ensuring all relevant clinical history has been collected and synthesized to ensure safety, continuity of care and minimal re-assessments for patients. Clear pathway management should be in place and information should be shared (where appropriate and consent has been given) to ensure that care plans and risks for patients are widely understood by all staff, including HMPPS staff.
Oxleas offers a wide range of NHS healthcare services to people in community and secure environment settings. Our services include community health care such as district nursing and speech and language therapy, care for people with learning disabilities and mental health care such as psychiatry, nursing and therapies. Our multidisciplinary teams look after people of all ages and we work in close partnership with other parts of the NHS, local councils and the voluntary sector and through our new provider collaboratives. Our 4,300 members of staff work in many different settings including hospitals, clinics, prisons, secure hospitals, children’s centres, schools and people’s homes.
We have over 125 sites in a variety of locations in the South of England. In London we operate within the Boroughs of Bexley, Bromley Greenwich and into Kent. We manage hospital sites including Queen Mary’s Hospital, Sidcup and Memorial Hospital, Woolwich, as well as the Bracton Centre, our medium secure unit for people with mental health needs. We are the largest NHS provider of prison health services providing healthcare to prisons within Devon, Dorset, Bristol, Wiltshire and Gloucestershire, Kent and South London. We are proud of the care we provide and our people.
Our purpose is to improve lives by providing the best possible care to our patients and their families. This is strengthened by our new values:
• We’re Kind
• We’re Fair
• We Listen
• We Care
• The post holder will be responsible take part in reception screening for new prisoners on the day of first entry into prison. This will identify immediate health, risks, and safetyneeds.
• To be able to develop initial mental health crisis plans for patients who are presenting as particularly at risk of a mental healthcrisis.
• The post holder will be responsible for carrying out comprehensive health and social care assessment (secondary screening) within seven days for all prisoners who are willing to undertake thisassessment.
• For people that decline this assessment the team will ensure a care plan is in place for any known risks and vulnerabilities and will proactively work with the person to undertake a secondary screen at a later stage.
• The post holder will lead on identifying patients whose needs, risks or circumstances have changed following a return from court or hospital outside of the receptionprocess.
• The development of a care plan that is individualised, responding clearly to each identified health need with patient input and coproductionwherefeasible and that ensures the wellbeing and safety of that patient for their first 14 daysincustody.
• The ability to collate healthcare information from families, community providers or prior establishments to improve continuity of care and safety, and limit reassessments.
• Ensure that all waiting time, assessment and interventions are delivered in a timely manner, and positively contribute to the achievement of the service’s performance targets.
Ensure integrated and collaborative working with other specialist services, including continuity of care and through the gate arrangements and liaison.
• Short-term care coordination to ensure referrals are made, GP appointments are attended, assessments actioned, and issues identified at the reception screening or health assessment areaddressed.
• To be able to provide brief interventions for substance misuse and mental wellbeing (i.e., sleep hygiene advice, breathing techniques for anxiety managementetc.
IMPORTANT INFORMATION, PLEASE READ:
All applicants must be willing to undertake National Security Vetting in order to work in a Prison Setting. This will be completed as part of the pre-employment checks through Oxleas and the prison vetting team.
You will need to provide:
Proof of right to work documentation
Proof of ID, needs to include 1 photographic ID
Proof of address documentation
Non-UK passport holders will need to have correct documentation (right to work in the UK) and a Home office Share code.
Address History:
5 years address history will be needed.
Applicants that are not UK Passport holders who provide less than 5 years UK address history will need to provide a Police Certificate which must be in English from where they resided previously.
Applicants who are UK Passport holders who have lived abroad for a period of more than six months during the last three years will need to provide a certificate of good conduct or an overseas police check in English from the countries resided in or visited.
In order to assist you in obtaining a Police Certificate, guidance can be sought from:
If the country you have resided in is not listed here, you can obtain the necessary information by contacting the relevant Embassy or High Commission for that Country. Their contact details can be found on the Foreign & Commonwealth Office website (
This advert closes on Monday 17 Feb 2025
Proud member of the Disability Confident employer scheme
Disability Confident
About Disability Confident
A Disability Confident employer will generally offer an interview to any applicant that declares they have a disability and meets the minimum criteria for the job as defined by the employer. It is important to note that in certain recruitment situations such as high-volume, seasonal and high-peak times, the employer may wish to limit the overall numbers of interviews offered to both disabled people and non-disabled people. For more details please go to Disability Confident .