Join Us

We look forward to welcoming you into our skilled and diverse nursing team at BSMHFT. We are proud to be able to offer a wide range of nursing opportunities across our services where the patient is truly at the heart of all we do.

We are proud to be able to offer fantastic learning and development support throughout all levels of nursing, from an excellent student placement offer, preceptorship programme and pot-registration learning. With a supportive team of clinical educators there is real opportunity to grow.

We have a strong nursing leadership structure with opportunities to further your career into roles which have quality and patient safety at the core. Teams are well supported through experienced Matrons, Head of Nursing and AHP’s and robust corporate nursing team to wrap around and enhance the care we deliver to our patients from both a mental and physical health perspective.

We are currently working on the development of our Nursing Strategy, which will provide clear direction on our priorities as a nursing team, this will be developed alongside all of our nursing colleagues to ensure that your voices are heard and incorporated into developing and delivering our key objectives. There will be a focus on some of the key challenges facing our nurses at this time which includes workforce, career development and quality and safety of patient care.

Working for BSMHFT will provide you the opportunity to flourish in your nursing career as we are able to offer a variety of career pathways across the wide-ranging services we deliver to a demographically diverse community. There are excellent opportunities for innovation, creating change and co-production throughout the organisation and this is an exciting time to be joining our nursing family.

We are the largest teaching Trust for medical undergraduate psychiatry training with over 450 students enjoying placements with the Trust each year.  We also deliver high quality post-graduate training at Foundation, Core and Higher Specialist training levels.  Further information about our medical training programmes can be accessed on the Health Education England West Midlands website.

We employ around 140 Consultant Psychiatrists and 60 middle grade Associate Specialist and Specialty Doctor Psychiatrists across a range of inpatient, community and specialist mental health services. Services include elements of rehabilitation, crisis and home treatment, assertive outreach, early intervention, addictions, day services and mental health wellbeing.

Our catchment population is ethnically diverse and characterised in places by high levels of deprivation. This provides opportunities for innovation in engaging people and addressing health inequalities. There are ample opportunities for special interest sessions, involvement in research and quality improvement, management, teaching and training.

New doctors are supported with a comprehensive induction programme and the West Midlands RCPsych mentorship scheme. We also have a fantastic CESR programme, aligned to the SAS Charter to help our doctors progress their career and gain Specialist Registration.

NHS administrative staff provide business support to clinical and non-clinical staff. We have many roles within our Trust in our supporting Corporate functions of HR, Finance, IT, Communications, Estates and Facilities as well as within our clinical services. Each role will require a unique set of skills but all have one common purpose: to support our clinical staff and services to provide the best service user care possible.

Careers in healthcare management and leadership can be very rewarding offering unrivalled opportunity and variety in progression along the NHS career pathway. Whether this may be in Clinical Management, General Management, Estates, Finance, HR, Projects or in Operational Management.

We look forward to welcoming you into our thriving AHP community here at BSMHFT. We deliver specialist, recovery focussed interventions across the organisation and co-production is at the very heart of everything we do.

We have a supportive professional leadership structure and use our AHP networks to promote and deliver needs of the service users for both mental and physical health recovery. Leadership is embedded at all levels of the organisation, and we have strong Executive Board representation from Sarah Bloomfield, Chief Nurse.

To overcome the challenges of working in a large geographical region we strive to keep our AHP community well connected through CPD events, AHP conference and our dedicated AHP professional forum (AHP AC).

As part of building our future workforce we are also committed to providing pre-registration training across all the pathways and professions and are local trailblazers in the move towards Apprenticeship programme for AHPs. We have a dedicated team to support AHP placements and practice development and are proud of our achievements in increasing our specialist mental health placements.

You will also find great opportunities for learning and development and opportunities for expanding into extended, and non- traditional clinical and leadership roles. As well as our core mental health services, we have AHPs in highly specialist areas such as Neuropsychiatry, Deaf Services, Perinatal and Personality Disorders Pathways. As well our valuable registered clinicians we have an expanding and dedicated support worker workforce who support our recovery interventions. Opportunities to join the team in all these roles can be found at NHS jobs and on our Trust website.

To tell you first hand what we do and how great it is to work at BSMHFT, please view these videos made with our AHP teams:

• Allied Health Professionals at our Trust
• Occupational Therapists at our Trust

Welcome to our Family of Psychological Professionals. We look forward to working with you to develop your talents in providing expert quality care for our service users and compassionate support for our colleagues and each other.

Dr Sunny Kalsy-Lillico
Chief Psychologist

We are one of the largest employers of Psychological Professions in the West Midlands region and we are strongly committed to supporting colleagues at all stages of their career to provide high quality psychological practices. We are also one of the only NHS providers of the Low Intensity Psychological Interventions training programmes, who are accredited to train Psychological Wellbeing Practitioner for NHS Talking Therapies services.

We employ over 500 Psychological Professionals, from those who are in aspiring roles to training roles to our Consultant body who are highly expert in their inpatient, community and specialist mental health services. We are committed to developing an even more diverse representation of our Psychological Professions workforce with a strong focus on mental health wellbeing. This reflects our ethnically diverse geographical patch and also enables colleagues to access a range of opportunities to be involved in developments to address health inequalities, research, leadership, teaching and training and the health and wellbeing of our workforce.

So, come and join us, together we can make a real difference for the communities we serve.

Further information about the diverse occupational groups within our Psychological Professions family can be accessed on the Psychological Professions Network website and associated career map pages.

To ensure that our Trust delivers safe, efficient, and effective healthcare and provide essential shift cover, we recruit various staffing groups who can work flexibly through our bank. To suit your flexible lifestyle and whatever your availability, our Trust can provide you with an exciting opportunity to work as you choose.

As well as a dedicated Temporary Staffing team available for enquiries and assistance between 6am and 9pm daily, our Trust has a Clinical and Pastoral Care Support network available to our bank individuals.

Birmingham and Solihull Mental Health Foundation Trust values your skills and experience. Join our bank today and be part of our 1,100 plus strong flexible bank-working team!

If you are appointed, you will be required to undertake the following:

• DBS check
• Qualification check
• Reference history
• Right to live and work verification
• Occupational health check

Once you have gained experience working on the bank you may want to express an interest in having a permanent post. If you work regularly in an area and they have a vacancy you can discuss your interest with the manager, discuss hours and other finer details. If you are both in agreement, they can contact the Recruitment Department to ask for you to be allocated to a vacancy. You will be sent an application form to complete for fast tracked recruitment. If you do not work regularly in a particular area, you can still express an interest in a substantive post.

For enquiries about temporary staffing please email bsmhft.tsssupportsm@nhs.net.

Volunteers can make a positive contribution to our teams at BSMHFT. Volunteers have an important role in improving the experience of service users and carers. We particularly welcome volunteers who have lived experience of using mental health services, or care for someone who has.  We ask that are Volunteers are aged 18+ in clinical areas and aged 16+ in non-clinical areas.

We have many volunteering roles across our Trust including;

• Activity volunteer helpers
• Meet and greet Volunteers
• Spiritual care Volunteers
• Wellbeing volunteers

All Volunteers will have a Local Supervisor, a Volunteer agreement, and where required, an up to date DBS check. Volunteers receive reimbursement of travel expenses.

For all queries about volunteering please email bsmhft.volunteering@nhs.net

Apprenticeships are available in many areas of our Trust:

• Business administration
• Customer services
• Data analysis
• Facilities management
• Health and social care
• Leadership and management
• Information and communications technology
• Pharmacy
• Psychological professions

For all queries about apprenticeships please email bsmhft.apprenticeships@nhs.net

Watch this video about the benefits our apprenticeship offers.

We are keen to support people making informed career choices through gaining experience in work placements.  We offer a range of clinical and non-clinical placements in a variety of settings.  Priority is given to residents of Birmingham and Solihull or students attending a school or college in the Birmingham and Solihull area.

Students in years 10 and 11 (aged 14-16) may have placements in non-clinical settings e.g. administration, finance, HR, communications,

Students in years 12-13 and beyond (age 17+) may have placements in non-clinical and clinical settings.

Clinical placements include roles working with:

• Healthcare assistants
• Nurses
• Allied Health Professionals (occupational therapists, physiotherapists, art therapists, Speech and language therapists etc.)
• Psychologist
• Psychiatrists

For a non-clinical or clinical placement, please email bsmhft.workexperience@nhs.net

For a medical placement to shadow a psychiatrist, please email bsmhft.medicalstaffing@nhs.net

A Clinical Attachment is an unpaid placement and enables international medical graduates to gain experience in the UK and the NHS. It is ideally suited to doctors who have already passed PLAB 1 and are soon expecting to gain their full GMC registration.

Placements will allow individuals to observe consultations, participate in patient admin and assist in taking patient histories.

To apply for a placement, please email your CV and covering letter to bsmhft.clinicalattachmentrequest@nhs.net

With unashamed pride we say that our biggest unique selling point for working for us is our offer of flexible working.

We are committed to offer a range of flexible working options as part of your standard working arrangements. Some examples of our flexible working options are described below.

Part-time working

Working less than full-time hours (usually by working fewer days).

• Flexible hours – within service requirements, we can be flexible with start and end times for work.
• Term time only contracts – allows you to work in term time only but be paid throughout the year in equal monthly payments.
• Compressed hours – working full full-time hours but over fewer days.

• Job sharing – two people do one job and split the hours.

You can discuss with your ward manager the options for:

• long day shifts (3 x 13 hours shifts a week)
• short shifts
• set working days and flexibility in start and finish times through the option of twilight shifts (4pm to 2am).

We are committed to creating a working environment where you can successfully balance your working and home lives. We understand that traditional work patterns do not suit everybody. We aim to be as flexible as possible, considering options that include variable hours and part-time working.

We believe in looking after the health and wellbeing of all our employees and workers. We take health and wellbeing seriously. There is support and advice from our occupational health provider, this includes 24-hour confidential and independent information and emotional support and more.

We offer competitive rates of pay and our reward and recognition systems operate in an equitable, fair, transparent, and objective way. Our pay scales include pay progression.

New employees normally start at the bottom of the appropriate grade, although the recruiting manager can recommend a higher starting salary by considering relevant skills and experience.

As soon as you start with us, you will automatically become a member of the NHS Pension Scheme, if eligible.

The NHS Pension Scheme continues to be one of the most comprehensive and generous schemes in the UK. Benefits are secure and guaranteed by the government. The scheme provides values protection for your family, including life assurance and a pension if you are too ill to work.

We have a generous annual leave entitlement of 27 days per year, rising to 29 days after five years’ service and 33 days after completing 10 years’ service. In addition, you will be entitled to eight bank holidays per year. Leave is pro-rata for part-time workers. If you’ve been employed by the NHS before joining us and your previous service is counted towards your higher leave entitlement.

Lease car scheme available – subject to eligibility criteria or other staff benefits including cycle to work scheme, discounts to major high street chains.