Are you passionate about driving high‑quality mental health care across acute settings? Do you thrive on influencing practice, supporting staff, and leading meaningful change? If so, we’d love you to join our Safeguarding & Complex Needs Team as our
Lead Professional for Mental Health Care Improvement.
This is an exciting opportunity to play a central role in delivering the Trust’s Complex Needs Implementation Plan and strengthening how we identify, assess, and support patients with mental ill health across all ages.
This role requires autonomy, expert judgement, and the ability to influence and inspire others across the organisation.
As The Lead Professional, You Will
- Provide specialist clinical advice on the identification and management of mental health needs.
- Lead service improvement initiatives, supporting prevention, early intervention and high‑quality care.
- Support the Head of Safeguarding & Complex Needs in developing and implementing mental health pathways, policies, training programmes and quality standards.
- Work collaboratively with clinical and non-clinical teams to embed best practice and ensure compliance with national legislation and guidelines.
- Deliver and oversee specialist training and safeguarding supervision for staff.
- Contribute to investigations, audits, reports, research, and service evaluations.
- Communicate effectively with colleagues on complex and sensitive matters, supporting a culture of continuous improvement and patient‑centred care
You Will Be a Registered Member Of a Professional Body With Significant Senior Clinical Experience Supporting People With Mental Ill Health. You Will Bring
- Strong leadership skills and experience mentoring or training others.
- The ability to engage and influence staff at all levels.
- Sound knowledge of mental health legislation, policy and best practice.
- Excellent communication skills—including when managing sensitive, emotional or complex situations.
- A commitment to continuous professional development and service improvement.
- Strong organisational skills, resilience, and the ability to prioritise effectively in a busy environment.
Trust Information Pack
https://yorkhospitals.pagetiger.com/hdjgxd
Our Benefits
We offer a range of benefits to support our staff including:
- Access to the NHS Pension Scheme, providing generous benefits upon retirement, as well as a lump sum and pension for dependants
- 27 days holiday rising to 33 days (depending on NHS Trust service)
- A generous relocation package of up to 30% of salary (capped at £18k) to support with relocation expenses for hard to fill positions where relocation would be an expectation to undertake the role fully. If you would like to discuss a potential relocation package, please speak to the recruiting department/manager
- A variety of different types of paid and unpaid leave covering emergency and planned leave
- Confidential advice and support on personal, work, family and relationship issues, 24/7, from our Employee Assistance Programme
- NHS Car Lease scheme and Cycle to Work scheme
- An extensive range of learning and development opportunities
- Discounts on restaurants, getaways, shopping, motoring, cinema and finance from a range of providers
For further information on the fantastic range of benefits we offer please visit the Trust's dedicated Staff Benefits pages.
For further details / informal visits contact: Name: Nicola Cowley Job title: Head of Safeguarding & Complex Needs Email address: nicola.cowley@nhs.net
