Community Consultant Old Age Psychiatrist - KnowsleyNHS

Job summary

As a Consultant Old Age Psychiatrist working for Mersey Care NHS Foundation Trust you will be responsible for ensuring that our service users' needs are met through the delivery of high quality care.

As a leader of the outpatient multi-disciplinary team at the Knowsley Later Life & Memory Service, you will manage the community mental health team and Memory service, providing clinical care to service users who have been referred for older adults mental health care and specialist cognitive assessment.

You will work closely with a wide range of clinical and professional disciplines in order to deliver holistic care by completing assessments of new referrals to the team, making formulations and managing their treatment in order to optimise the quality of life of the service users under your caseload.

Main duties of the job

The post holder will act as the Responsible Clinician for patients within their allocated caseload in the Older Adults Community Mental Health Team. Caseloads are aligned to designated GP surgeries and allocated to ensure an equitable distribution of referrals and workload. The role involves providing clinical leadership, consultation, supervision and support to the multidisciplinary team, while actively contributing to patient assessment, treatment and care. The post holder will support timely access to services, promote effective pathways between primary and secondary care, and provide specialist advice to team members, GPs, patients and carers. Working within integrated Health and Social Care teams, they will contribute to service development, participate in allocation processes, and respond flexibly to the changing needs of the service to ensure the delivery of high-quality care.

Job description

The overall pathway for the older adult service at Knowsley LLAMS is as below:

• Referrals are received from the GP/first response service/other medical specialty such as Neurology, Geriatrics or Movement Disorder services
• All referrals are added to the Assessment pathway upon receipt and referrals are autonomously screened by senior nursing staff from the team on a daily basis. This practitioner may seek support from team management for certain referrals or discuss with the Consultant if greater medical oversight is felt to be required on a case by base basis.
• For all accepted referrals, a screening call is completed within 72 hours and an initial assessment is then completed by a Band 6 practitioner or above within two weeks. Physical health screening is completed by a Band 3 practitioner.
• Once the initial assessment has been completed then a diagnostic appointment (new patient appointment) is made with the Consultant Psychiatrist in outpatient clinic or as a home visit in order to establish the diagnosis and management plan.
• If a diagnosis of dementia is confirmed and treatment is commenced, the patient will be booked in for Memory Team review at 11 weeks, 3 months and then 6 monthly thereafter. Any confirmed diagnoses of Mild Cognitive Impairment are discharged from the service with appropriate advice. If further investigations are required these are requested prior to commencing treatment.
• Post diagnostic support is completed by the team which oversees memory medication titration and monitors pulse and blood pressure on follow up visits. Cognitive Stimulation Therapy is offered on site by the team and also on a one to one basis if required. Once memory medication tolerance has been confirmed following titration, patients are subsequently reviewed every six months by the Memory Team part of the MDT. If there are any concerns around increased risk or needs for any patients then they are stepped up to being followed up by the CMHT section of the team.
• Patients diagnosed with dementia who are settled and established on treatment with appropriate onward referrals for social care input and other support in the community are stepped down to having further follow up by the Dementia Care Navigator in the team. Anybody who has been diagnosed with dementia and is living in the community is never discharged by the team. For those living in 24 hour care placements, they are discharged to the care of the Care Home Liaison team

As of the mid-2022 population estimates, the over-65 catchment populations in the Huyton and Whiston areas covered by the postholder are 11.200 and 2500 respectively, with the total populations in these areas being 63,000 and 13,500 respectively. The total annual number of referrals from the Huyton area between May 2025 and May 2026 was 421 and from Whiston was 131. Total current caseload for the team is 472.

The post holder will cover seven care homes in the locality, with three of these being EMI Residential homes, three being EMI Residential and Nursing and one being a Dementia Plus home.

There are 15 GP surgeries in Huyton and 5 in Whiston which are covered by the postholders catchment area.

In addition, there is a separate Care Home Liaison team caseload for those with established diagnoses of dementia living in 24 hour care placements. The postholder does not have care responsibility for this caseload but for any patients who are unsettled and require medical input, the Care Home Liaison team may refer to the postholder for input.

About us

Mersey Care is one of the largest trusts providing physical health and mental health services in the North West, serving more than 1.4 million people across our region and are also commissioned for services that cover the North West, North Wales and the Midlands.

We offer specialist inpatient and community services that support physical and mental health and specialist inpatient mental health, learning disability, addiction and brain injury services. Mersey Care is one of only three trusts in the UK that offer high secure mental health facilities.

At the heart of all we do is our commitment to 'perfect care' - care that is safe, effective, positively experienced, timely, equitable and efficient. We support our staff to do the best job they can and work alongside service users, their families, and carers to design and develop future services together. We're currently delivering a programme of organisational and service transformation to significantly improve the quality of the services we provide and safely reduce cost as we do so.

Flexible working requests will be considered for all roles.