Senior Nurse - HMP High Down

Location: Sutton

Salary: £37,338 per annum, plus benefits

Vacancy Type: Permanent, Full-time

We are currently recruiting for a Senior Nurse based at HMP High Down.

Here at Forward Trust, we deliver a complex range of drug and alcohol services in the unique prison environment.

Our support includes providing advice, health and wellbeing, motivational work, clinical services, and a wider range of group work and treatment programmes.

The Forward Trust services which are delivered within prison settings are commissioned by NHS England and are delivered in partnership with primary healthcare providers and HMPPS. Integration and partnership are integral to the work we do.

We believe that everyone can live a fulfilling life, whatever their past. Our work in prisons aims to support those affected by drug or alcohol issues to create lasting change and reduce dependency, homelessness, unemployment, and re-offending.

About the role:

At The Forward Trust, we are offering an exciting opportunity for a Senior Band 6 Substance Misuse Nurse to join our team at HMP High Down. This role will allow you to build specialist skills in substance misuse and offender health while working within a dynamic, multidisciplinary team.

The Forward Trust provide both clinical and psychosocial Substance Misuse Services across Surrey Prisons in partnership with NHS Trust healthcare providers. Each service operates a Health and Wellbeing framework taking a trauma informed and gender responsive approach to delivery of a wide variety of interventions and integrated pathways tailored to meet specific needs of each prison and individual service users.

With pro-active partnership working a key aspect in the delivery of these services multi-disciplinary working across mental health, healthcare services and the prison is essential. You will be based on site working within a team that have a broad skills mix to deliver combined psychosocial and clinical interventions providing recovery-orientated Health and Wellbeing Services to service users aged 18 and over at HM Prison High Down, which is a category C men's training / resettlement prison. It is a dynamic and forward-thinking men’s prison which has undergone a recategorisation and accommodates a diverse and complex population of sentenced male prisoners.

As a Senior Nurse, you will play a key role in the delivery and development of clinical substance misuse services at HMP High Down. You will be responsible for providing high standards of nursing care, contributing to service improvement initiatives, and supporting junior colleagues as part of your leadership responsibilities.

Working collaboratively with primary care, mental health and psychosocial teams and custodial staff, you will ensure that integrated, evidence-based care is delivered holistically, safely and effectively within the prison environment.

Key responsibilities:

• Work under the direction of the lead nurse to provide high-quality, evidence-based nursing care to individuals in custody with substance misuse needs, including comprehensive assessment, care planning, implementation, and evaluation of treatment interventions.
• Work within professional, legal, and organisational frameworks to ensure the safe and effective delivery of clinical services within a secure environment.
• Work under the leadership of the lead nurse to manage complex presentations, offer clinical guidance on treatment pathways, detoxification protocols, opioid substitution therapy (OST), and relapse prevention strategies.
• Foster effective multidisciplinary team working with prison healthcare, custodial staff, mental health services, and external agencies to support integrated, holistic care and continuity across the care pathway.
• Undertake dynamic risk assessments that address safeguarding concerns, high-risk behaviours, mental health and comorbidities escalating appropriately.
• Promote health, recovery, and harm reduction through psychoeducation, brief interventions, motivational interviewing, and person-centred care planning.
• Able to lead during emergency situations, competent in basic life support, defibrillation, and managing medical emergencies such as overdose and administering Naloxone until emergency medical assistance arrives.
• Ensure adherence to Nursing and Midwifery Council (NMC) Code of Conduct and consistently uphold the values of the 6 Cs: Care, Compassion, Competence, Communication, Courage, and Commitment in all professional practice.

All prison-based roles will require enhanced DBS and HMPPS security vetting. Please note this process can take up to 8-12 weeks. All offers are subject to receiving both HMPPS vetting and DBS clearances.

Checks will require you to provide information on the below:

• Yourself (personal information, financial information, police information, criminal history).
• Your family (parents, parents’ partners, siblings, partner(s), children).
• Co-residents.
• Associations that may cause a conflict of interest with your role or the prison service.
• Background checks across police information systems on you, your family and other associates.
• Credit reference checks.
• Social media and Open-Source checks (these are checks on content about you that's publicly available on the internet to ensure there's nothing linked to you that could undermine public trust and confidence in the prison service).
• Other government and overseas agency or police checks.

The ideal candidate will:

• Be a current Registered General Nurse, Mental Health Nurse or Learning Disability Nurse.
• Have the ability to assess, plan, implement and evaluate patient care and act accordingly if concerns present themselves and an understanding of harm reduction and health promotion strategies.
• Demonstrate the capability to carry out administrative responsibilities, including maintaining accurate patient records within the standards required locally, the Forward Trust and NMC.
• Have strong organisational skills and the ability to lead and facilitate decision-making processes and the ability to travel to other sites when required.
• Possess knowledge and an awareness of health issues related to Substance Misuse and the knowledge and ability to comply with the NMC Code of Conduct.

To Apply

If you feel you are a suitable candidate and would like to work for the Forward Trust, please proceed through the following link to be redirected to their website to complete your application.

https://careers.forwardtrust.org.uk/vacancies/98/senior-nurse--hmp-high-down.html

Contact information

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