KMPT has an exciting opportunity for an experienced mental health nurse to come and work with the WK and Medway Rough Sleeper Initiative service, which is expanding to include the Gravesham area.

The team work closely with the borough councils to enhance the homelessness services for vulnerable rough sleepers and those at risk of sleeping on the streets. The project provides the opportunity to tackle the ongoing needs of vulnerable rough sleepers who have fallen out of services, or who will not engage with traditional pathways of support and housing, often with chaotic lives and a history of offending, drug and alcohol use and being excluded from mainstream services.

With estimates ranging from 40%-80% of the rough sleeping population living with mental illness, it is a major contributory factor to people not being able to find or maintain a home. As rough sleepers average age of death is 43, we cannot let this need go unmet.

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).

Carrying out regular outreach alongside homelessness staff to identify unmet mental health needs and make appropriate referrals.
Visiting vulnerable people in our supported accommodation, housing first flats, or general needs accommodation, to assess if they have the right level and type of support around their mental health needs.
Identifying where people need to be fast tracked into primary care services.
Advising colleagues across the Rough Sleeper Initiative service and to our housing related support services regarding good practice.
Taking part in two monthly rough sleeper counts in the early hours of the morning.
Attending operational groups and panels to agree best use of housing resources available to meet the needs of rough sleepers.

Come and work with us in the Garden of England where we combine exceptional professional development opportunities with a tremendous quality of life.

We are Kent and Medway NHS and Social Care Partnership Trust (KMPT), providing mental health, learning disability and specialist services, serving 1.8 million people in Kent and Medway, as well as specialist services for adults in Sussex and Surrey. We are rated Good overall by the CQC.

Each year we care for over 2,000 people in our hospitals and 54,000 people in the community.

We are proud to employ over 3,800 people from 66 nationalities, and to serve an increasingly diverse range of communities across rural and urban areas.

You will be joining friendly, passionate colleagues, rich in their diversity, who are committed to providing excellent care to our service users and their loved ones.

The nature of our work attracts kindness and compassion as standard and everyone from our cleaners and porters to the chief executive and chairman are recognised as playing a vital role in providing an exemplary service.

Our strategy

Our mission is what we set out to do every day
We deliver brilliant care through brilliant people

Our vision is where we want to be in the future
To provide outstanding care and to work in partnership to deliver this in the right place, for every service user, every time.

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Please see the attached job description for full details of the main duties and responsibilities of the role.

At KMPT, 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.