Consultant Psychiatrist - Assertive Outreach Team Oxford

Detailed job description and main responsibilities

The Oxford City Assertive Outreach Team is being created specifically to engage and support people with severe mental illness who find it difficult to access or remain connected with traditional mental health services. We will deliver person-centred, recovery-focused care through persistent engagement, strong therapeutic relationships, and community-based interventions. Our practice is trauma-informed, strengths-based, and multidisciplinary, with a commitment to reducing health inequalities, promoting social inclusion, and enabling individuals to live meaningful lives in their communities.

Core Operating Principles - Oxford City Assertive Outreach Team:

1. Person-Centred and Recovery-Focused Practice: We work alongside individuals to identify and achieve their personal goals, strengths, and aspirations. Recovery is defined by the person, not by services, and interventions are tailored to individual needs, preferences, and circumstances.
2. Assertive Engagement: We proactively engage people who experience severe mental illness and who have difficulty maintaining contact with conventional services. Engagement is persistent, respectful, flexible, and based on building trusting therapeutic relationships over time.
3. Community-Based Care: Care is mostly delivered in community settings where people live, work, and socialise. Staff meet people in environments that are comfortable and accessible to them, reducing barriers to engagement.
4. Trauma-Informed Practice: We recognise the prevalence and impact of trauma and seek to create emotionally and physically safe interactions. Staff work collaboratively to avoid re-traumatisation and aim to promote empowerment, choice, and trust.
5. Relational Practice: Therapeutic relationships are the primary vehicle for change. We prioritise consistency, reliability, compassion, and authenticity in all contacts with service users, carers, and partner agencies.
6. Shared Decision-Making: People are supported to make informed decisions about their care and treatment wherever possible. Care planning is collaborative and respects autonomy, rights, and individual preferences. People under treatment are enabled through our patient reported outcome measures systems to give systematic feedback regarding their care.
7. Strengths-Based Approach: We focus on people's capabilities, resilience, and community resources rather than solely on symptoms, deficits, or risks. We support individuals to build independence and social inclusion.
8. Whole-Person Care: Mental health needs are addressed alongside physical health, housing, employment, finances, substance use, learning disabilities/autism, anti-social behaviours, social networks, and other determinants of wellbeing. We recognise that recovery requires more than symptom management.
9. Risk Management Through Engagement: Risk is best understood and managed through meaningful relationships, regular contact, and collaborative planning and formulation. We balance positive risk-taking with the need to promote safety for our service users and members of the public.
10. Multi-Disciplinary Team working: The team brings together diverse professional expertise to provide coordinated, holistic care. Decisions are informed by multiple perspectives and shared responsibility.
11. Health Equity and Inclusion: We actively address barriers related to ethnicity, culture, language, disability, gender, sexuality, age, homelessness, and social disadvantage. Services are delivered in a way that promotes fairness and accessibility.
12. Partnership Working: We work closely with primary care, acute services, social care, housing providers, voluntary organisations, criminal justice agencies, carers, and families to support recovery and continuity of care.
13. Evidence-Based Practice: Interventions are informed by current evidence, national guidance, and continuous quality improvement. Staff are encouraged to develop specialist skills and contribute to service innovation.
14. Flexible and Responsive Care: Support is adapted to changing needs and circumstances. The team responds rapidly to periods of increased vulnerability while maintaining continuity during periods of stability.
15. Co-Production: People with lived experience, carers, and community partners contribute to the design, delivery, and evaluation of the service. Their expertise is valued equally alongside professional knowledge.

We offer rewarding career development with protected SPA time as part of your job plan, encouraging you to take leadership courses to enhance your skills. We also offer a relocation allowance of up to £8,000 for external applicants (subject to eligibility criteria).