Employment specialists work with clinical teams to support adults and young people receiving mental health services to find or keep the right job for them.
There are no set entry requirements. Some employers may ask for a qualification in healthcare and/or relevant experience and will expect good literacy and numeracy. They may ask for GCSEs 9-4 (A-C) or equivalent. They may want to see that you have experience or an understanding of mental health services. You will have ongoing training to keep your skills and knowledge up to date.
The standard working hours are 37.5 hours a week, but you may sometimes be required to work outside the hours of 9am and 5pm. Employment specialists in the NHS are paid on the Agenda for Change (AfC) pay system. You may start on a band 3/4/5 depending on job location and experience.
You’ll need to be a self-starter with a passionate belief that anyone can work and a good understanding of mental health issues. You’ll need excellent interpersonal skills and the ability to build close, trusting and productive relationships with a range of people as part of a multidisciplinary team.
You may be able to progress to becoming a senior employment specialist or the team leader of a group of employment specialists. This will involve providing supervision, training, and mentoring to your team, and offering a pivotal role in managing a high-quality service. You could also choose to apply to train as a mental health nurse or social worker, or pursue a career in one of the psychological professions.
Related roles
Doctors working in general internal medicine treat patients with a wide range of acute and long-term medical conditions.
Training usually starts with a five year first degree in medicine. Then there's two years foundation doctor training, two years core training (CT1-2), followed by three years specialists training (ST3-5). This period of training will include your royal college exams. Length of training can vary according to your circumstances.
Doctors may work up to 48 hours a week. The working hours may sometimes extend beyond the normal working day to include early mornings, evenings and weekends. You will also need to be on call. The basic salary ranges from £29,384 to £34,012. Once you start your specialty training as a doctor in general internal medicine employed by the NHS, you can expect to earn a salary of at least £40,257, which can increase to between £84,559 and £114,003 as a consultant.
You'll need excellent communication skills to manage a wide range of relationships with colleagues, and patients and their families. You'll be emotionally resilient, have excellent problem-solving and diagnostic skills and work well in teams and under pressure. You'll also be very organised for the benefit of patients.
There are approximately 891 consultants working in general internal medicine in the NHS in England. You could specialise in acute internal medicine, cardiology, endocrinology and diabetes, gastroenterology, geriatric medicine, renal medicine or respiratory medicine.
Related roles
- Emergency medicine [7]
- Acute internal medicine [8]
- Geriatric medicine [9]
- Respiratory medicine [10]