Prison Liaison Practitioner

Job summary

As a Prison Liaison Practitioner, you will deliver expert clinical advice and oversight to support men in prison awaiting transfer to secure inpatient mental health services. Based within Forensic Healthcare Services, you will serve as a specialist bridge between prison healthcare staff, secure inpatient units, and provider collaboratives across Kent, Surrey, and Sussex.

Working alongside a counterpart based at Sussex Partnership NHS Foundation Trust, you will form a small, discrete team offering mutual cover and joint clinical oversight for the waiting list of men awaiting hospital admission.

While prison healthcare providers retain primary clinical responsibility for patients during their stay in prison, your practitioner expertise will be pivotal in conducting advanced reviews, triaging referrals, and ensuring safe, timely transitions into

Main duties of the job

• Advanced Clinical Assessment: Apply expert, high-level clinical skills to assess and review men in prison awaiting secure inpatient admission, evaluating their suitability and urgent care needs in dynamic environments.

• Specialist Clinical Consultation: Offer expert practitioner advice and guidance to prison-based mental health services to optimize ongoing care while hospital transfer is arranged.

• Joint Oversight & Patient Flow: Work alongside your team counterpart to maintain joint clinical oversight of the waiting list for hospital transfers, ensuring streamlined referral management across the region.

• Team Cover & Continuity: Function as part of a small, supportive unit, providing mutual cover to ensure uninterrupted service delivery across Kent, Surrey, and Sussex.

• Multi-Agency Collaboration: Partner closely with prison healthcare providers, forensic inpatient teams, NHS collaboratives, and probation services to ensure seamless transitions and align risk management.

• Clinical Governance & Records: Maintain accurate, timely, and confidential clinical documentation in line with Trust governance, professional standards, and confidentiality guidelines.

• The post holder does not provide treatment directly but provides expertise to prison based mental health services.

About us

We are Kent and Medway Mental Health NHS Trust. We care for the mental health and wellbeing of people across Kent and Medway and are rated 'Good' by the Care Quality Commission (CQC).

Our teams support children, young people and adults with a wide range of mental health needs. We also provide specialist services, including all-age eating disorder services and neurodevelopmental assessments for children and young people, such as autism and ADHD.

Because we work across the whole county and across hospital and community settings, we can make care more joined up and easier to access for the people we serve.

Our vision is simple: we are here to help communities not just live with mental illness, but live well. It's why we're passionate about working with communities to make mental health care better for everyone. Everything we do is guided by our values: caring, inclusive, curious and confident.

Join us if you share our passion for better mental health care and want to be part of a team that's working well together.

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Job responsibilities

Please refer to the attached job description for the full details on the responsibilities and person specification

We are serious about diversity and inclusion, and we are working hard to build this into our DNA. We warmly welcome applications for any of our roles from people from diverse backgrounds, and we are proactively encouraging applications from under-represented communities for our more senior roles, like this one.

The post holder must hold a full, valid, UK driving licence and have access to a car/vehicle to use for business purposes, unless you have a disability as defined by the Equality Act 2010

Person specification

Training, Qualifications and Registration

Essential

• Registered Nurse mental health, Registered Nurse Learning Disability Level 1 OR Registered allied health professional or social worker.
• Registration with relevant professional body, NMC, HCPC or SWE
• Evidence of significant relevant professional development

Desirable

• Masters level education in related subject
• Registered teaching qualification e.g. PGCE or equivalent

Experience

Essential

• Substantial evidence of recent relevant clinical. Practice in Forensic Mental Health or prison healthcare.
• Advanced level expert knowledge of clinical practice and multidisciplinary team working in mental health
• Experience of working with trauma informed principles of practice.
• Experience of working in specialist forensic or prison mental healthcare