Approved Mental Health Professional

Role Purpose

To meet the duties as set out in the Mental Health Act (1983) and associated legislation by providing a statutory Approved Mental Health Professional service across Bath and North East Somerset, focusing on protection, prevention, and safeguarding, to improve outcomes and quality of life and for individuals and families. This includes collaborating closely with and providing a multi-agency liaison role across Heath and Social Care, Emergency Services, Private Providers and the Voluntary Sector.

Accountabilities

• Take professional, evidence-based, risk-informed decisions in line with legislation, statutory guidance, and local AMHP policies and procedures, to ensure appropriate action is taken, when dealing with referrals and service users.
• Maintain accurate professional records and complex case files in accordance with statutory requirements and local policies and procedures, to ensure that information legally robust and auditable.
• Undertake assessments under the Mental Health Act for Adults and Children, making autonomous decisions regarding the liberty of service users and management of risk, whilst adhering to the guiding principles, including least restrictive considerations.
• Provide initial response to enquiries, in the form of professional advice and guidance to referrers. This may include discrete work such as joint assessments with other service providers.
• Consultation with Nearest Relative as part of the Mental Health Act assessment in accordance with the legislation and advising the Nearest Relative of his/her rights and the patients rights and of the outcome of the assessment. This includes advising the Nearest Relative of his/her right to make an application under the Mental Health Act
• Make applications to the County Court to displace and/or appoint a nearest relative for the relevant person as required. Make applications to the Magistrates Court for S135 Warrants and subsequently execute these warrants in line with the legislation and guidance. The role holder will be personally accountable for the information provided to the Court.
• Make applications for the detention of individuals in hospital, applications for Guardianship, agree with the making of Community Treatment Orders or make onward referral for alternative assessment, in accordance with well-defined protocols and the legal requirements of the Mental Health Act, to ensure the safety and well-being of service users. This involves taking an individual, evidence-based decision in line with the legislation and protocols, without oversight or approval from a manager or other senior practitioner.
• Maintain a portfolio including statutory practice requirement of 18 hours update training per year and other requirements as part of the warranting process.
• Respect service users as unique through a commitment to anti-discriminatory practice, which seeks to reduce, undermine or eliminate discrimination and oppression and remove the barriers that prevent people accessing B&NES services.
• Utilise professional AMHP supervision to ensure the effective provision of mental health services to service users and carers and to further professional development.
• Partner and build collaborative working relationships with other professional teams and over organisational boundaries, to ensure service users experience cohesive and seamless support to meet their needs and enable positive risk taking and management.
• Where agreed with the Team manager, may be expected to work on additional specialist areas of work including Mental Capacity Act and DoLS (if appropriately qualified), Social Supervision for restricted patients, delivering bespoke training to other teams or organisations and providing supervision and support to trainees or students.
• Build collaborative, professional relationships with service users, enabling them to participate in or make decisions themselves where possible.
• Identify relevant individuals and provide evidence in line with the Breathing Space legislation to support service users who are in need of assistance with debt management.

Knowledge / Skills / Experience required

• Degree in Social Work (CSS CQSW, Dip SW) or other equivalent professional qualification (eg RMN)
• Approved Mental Health Professional qualification.
• Registered with relevant professional body (E,g Social Work England, HCPC)
• Experience in co-ordinating and completing assessments under the Mental Health Act.
• In depth knowledge of legislation and accompanying codes of practice, statutory guidance, national codes, local policy and procedures. e.g.1983 Mental Health Act as amended 2007
• Ability to work in, evaluate and manage situations of high risk.
• Ability to communicate clearly, using empathy, understanding and persuasion to appropriately encourage effective decision making.
• Ability to establish and maintain effective professional relationships with service users and with other stakeholders and partner agencies.
• Ability to work autonomously, prioritising own work and managing own time effectively. Will need to plan and manage activities relating to practice standards, professional development, and quality assurance.
• Need to hold a driving license as travel would be needed as part of assessments.
• Ability to recognise occasions when need to seek additional managerial support and escalate concerns.
• Some experience of carrying out or involvement in best interest assessments

Dimensions of role

• This role does not have any management requirements but may undertake supervision of AMHP trainees and mentoring of junior practitioners as appropriate.
• The role does not manage any budgets.
• Planning typically takes place over weeks and months aligned to assessments/referrals, including response to daily crisis events.

Working Conditions

• The role has an occasional requirement for a relatively low level of physical exertion over short periods, with the ability to control this requirement.
• The role has frequent exposure to environmental conditions that cause moderate discomfort for defined periods with limited ability to control or minimise the exposure.
• The role needs to maintain a high level of vigilance / alertness / concentration for extended periods of time in the face of a high level of distraction and challenging environment to ensure accuracy and safety where there are distinct/considerable safety risks to self and others.
• This role has frequent requirement to handle considerably challenging and confrontational behaviour as well as frequent exposure to traumatic/distressing situations that may be intense in an environment where there is inherent conflict and risk of personal threat (this is related to assessing people in acute mental health distress who require an urgent detention under the Mental Health Act).

Values and Behaviour Framework

The Values are underpinned by a set of behaviours for all staff, managers, and leaders. These Values and Behaviours are used to support and inform our recruitment decisions, staff development and organisational behaviour.