Job summary
Ready for your next challenge?
Join our welcoming and forward-thinking Adult Community Speech and Language Therapy team in Gloucestershire, where you'll have the opportunity to broaden your clinical expertise while maintaining a positive work-life balance.
We're looking for a motivated and enthusiastic Speech and Language Therapist to work with a diverse adult caseload, supporting individuals with acquired communication and swallowing needs in community settings. This is a fantastic opportunity to work across outpatient clinics, community hospitals, care homes, or patients' own homes.
This is an especially exciting time to join the service. We are evolving through a programme of transformation and redesign, giving you a genuine voice in shaping future services and improving care for our local population.
We welcome applications from established Band 6 clinicians, as well as experienced Band 5 therapists ready to develop their skills. Flexible and part-time working options are available, enabling you to balance your professional ambitions with your personal life.
Main duties of the job
In this role, you will:
- Independently manage a varied and rewarding caseload of adults with communication and swallowing disorders from a range of aetiologies
- Deliver person-centred assessment, diagnosis, and intervention across diverse community settings
- Work collaboratively within an innovative, supportive, and experienced speech and language therapy team
- Play an active role in service development and quality improvement initiatives
You'll be part of a wider Adult SLT service spanning both acute and community settings, offering excellent opportunities for shared learning and collaboration.
Why Join Us?
We are proud of our supportive team culture and strong commitment to your professional growth and wellbeing. When you join us, you can expect:
- Comprehensive CPD opportunities and access to a wide range of training
- Structured supervision, including regular peer support sessions
- Opportunities to develop advanced clinical skills in areas such as FEES, VFS, and tracheostomy
- A clear pathway for career progression, supported through regular personal development reviews
Whether you're experienced in community working or keen to transition into this rewarding area, you will be supported every step of the way to grow, develop, and thrive.
The qualification, training & experience requirements for the role are underlined in the Job Description/Person Specification.
About us
We have a skilled and dedicated workforce of over 5000 colleagues working in a diverse range of services over 55 sites and within people's homes. We strive to enable a welcoming workplace culture that builds and celebrates civility, inclusivity and diversity, while providing a sense of belonging and trust.
Annual staff surveys, regular Pulse surveys and other engagement opportunities provide our people with lots of opportunity to tell us about their experiences of working with us. In the latest staff survey, 61% of colleagues gave us their views. It was great to hear that:
- 72% of colleagues would recommend the Trust as a place to work, ranking us 1st for Provider Trusts in the South West region on this question.
- 76% would recommend the standard of care provided in our services if a friend or relative needed treatment, also ranking us 1st in the South West region.
- 81% said that care of patients and service users is the Trust's priority, compared with an average in comparable NHS Trusts in England of 64%.
This high-level overview shows we are in a healthy position, with higher scores than average for comparable organisations, alongside a great response rate, indicating good staff engagement. However, we also know we have plenty of room for improvement in many areas. To that end, we continue to prioritise and invest in our commitment to genuinely becoming a Great Place to Work with consistent top-quartile performance in the annual staff survey and Pulse surveys.
Job description
Job responsibilities
Overview of the role from the job description:
- To provide Specialist Speech and Language Therapy assessment, diagnosis and treatment to adults in Gloucestershire. This may include patients with acquired communication, voice and swallowing disorders and may be across a wide range of settings including, community hospitals, outpatient clinic or patients own home or care home.
- To manage and prioritise own clinical workload as appropriate seeking guidance from team leads as required
- To supervise Speech and Language Therapy assistants or newly qualified SLTs
- To work autonomously within Gloucestershire Health and Care NHS Foundation Trust (GHC) policies and professional practice maintaining accurate and comprehensive electronic records
- To participate in service improvement projects as indicated
Duties, responsibilities and key Relationships
Clinical
- To provide specialist differential diagnosis, clinical advice, and care plans/therapy to clients with communication / swallowing difficulties; this includes analysis of facts and a comparison of a range of options for appropriate intervention, implementing specialist programmes where appropriate.
- To provide advice and second opinions to SLT colleagues when necessary to support the clinical management of patients.
- To assess and analyse type, severity and impact of complex conditions of speech, language, communication and swallowing impairments in a wide range of adult patients, through specific formal and informal assessments.
- To provide advice and second opinions when necessary to support the clinical management of clients within multi-disciplinary team decision making with patients and their significant others
- To demonstrate clear communication skills when presenting specialist clinical information in both verbal and written formats when dealing with sensitive situations such as end of life.
Professional
- To monitor and/or undertake quality improvement projects as service demands in order to inform the SLT service and Gloucestershire Health and Care NHS trust (GHC) and Gloucestershire Hospital NHS Trust (GHNHST) of development needs
- Contribute to local clinical guidelines
- To monitor and evaluate clinical effectiveness using provided support, evidence-based practice and outcome measures.
- To maintain up to date and accurate case notes, both paper and electronic records in line with RCSLT Professional Standards, GHC Trust Policy and departmental guidelines.
- To adhere to and maintain the standards and guidelines as recommended by the RCSLT and the Health Care Professions Council (HCPC) codes of conduct and practice.
- To attend relevant training and development in order to maintain and develop skills and knowledge required of a specialist therapist working with a variety of patients and maintain up to date HCPC and RCSLT registration. This includes participating in regular supervision and annual personal development planning.
- To prescribe augmentative and alternative methods of communication (e.g. communication aids) and provide support, advice and training to clients, carers and professionals with the support of highly specialist AAC therapist both in house and in specialist centres of excellence.
- To refer patients on to other services and agencies and to liaise with members of voluntary organisations concerned with the client group eg Early Stroke discharge team, Parkinsons Disease support group
- To negotiate with patients/carers/ significant others around individual case management, ensuring patient involvement in their clinical outcomes.
Leadership / Management
- To manage communication breakdown/conflict in complex cases generating potential solutions
- To attend departmental development meetings, presenting and leading as appropriate to sharing skills or recent training
- To provide clinical and line management supervision to colleagues including band 5 colleagues, assistants and students
The Trustis required towork in line with the Governments UK Visa and Immigration Rules and Regulations. For more information about sponsorship for certain roles, please visit -https://www.gov.uk/browse/visas-immigration/work-visas
Person Specification
QUALIFICATIONS
Essential
- Recognised Royal College of Speech and Language Therapists degree level qualification
- Member of the Royal College of Speech and Language Therapists (RCSLT)
- Member of the Health Care Professions Council (HCPC)
- Post Graduate Dysphagia Training
LENGTH AND / OR NATURE OF EXPERIENCE
Essential
- Experience in managing patients with communication and swallowing difficulties as a result of acquired disorders.
- Working collaboratively within a multi-disciplinary team and with other professionals.
Professional/managerial/Specialist Knowledge
Essential
- Skill in independent selection of appropriate strategies for prioritisation and management of a complex caseload
- Specialist skills in differential diagnosis and targeting of clinical interventions
- Negotiation skills for management of conflict across a range of situations
- To employ appropriate strategies to manage aggressive or other inappropriate behaviour within the workplace
Desirable
- A baseline knowledge and understanding of the specific counselling required for the specialist area
- Demonstration of specialist knowledge in clinical specialism underpinned by current evidence based practice
Disclosure and Barring Service Check
This post is subject to the Rehabilitation of Offenders Act (Exceptions Order) 1975 and as such it will be necessary for a submission for Disclosure to be made to the Disclosure and Barring Service (formerly known as CRB) to check for any previous criminal convictions.
Certificate of Sponsorship
Applications from job seekers who require current Skilled worker sponsorship to work in the UK are welcome and will be considered alongside all other applications. For further information visit the UK Visas and Immigration website (Opens in a new tab).
From 6 April 2017, skilled worker applicants, applying for entry clearance into the UK, have had to present a criminal record certificate from each country they have resided continuously or cumulatively for 12 months or more in the past 10 years. Adult dependants (over 18 years old) are also subject to this requirement. Guidance can be found here Criminal records checks for overseas applicants (Opens in a new tab).
UK Registration
Applicants must have current UK professional registration. For further information please see NHS Careers website (opens in a new window).
Employer details
Employer name
Gloucestershire Health and Care NHS Foundation Trust
Address
Southgate Moorings
Southgate Street
Gloucester
GL1 2DB
United Kingdom
Employer's website
https://www.ghc.nhs.uk/who-we-are/jobs/ (Opens in a new tab)
This listing was aggregated from publicly-available sources. The employer holds an A-rated sponsor licence at the time of this listing, but sponsorship of this specific role is not guaranteed — the employer's offer and UK Visas and Immigration are the final authority. Details may have changed since our last update — verify with the employer via the Apply link.