Band 6 Mental Health Practitioner (MHP)

Band 6 Mental Health Practitioner (MHP) The closing date is 01 December 2025

Are you an experienced mental health professional looking for a new challenge? Would you like to add military mental healthcare to your career portfolio? We are looking for someone with vision, substantial clinical experience and drive who can adapt to a new organisational culture whilst still adhering to the highest standards of professional practice. Experience of assessing and managing risk will help to keep our serving military personnel safe whilst your clinical skills and knowledge will support timely and efficient service delivery. Experience of working with military populations would be welcome but it is by no means a prerequisite for application. Your commitment and enthusiasm are more important!

We are seeking to recruit a Mental Health Practitioner for 37.5 hours per week to join a military Department of Community Mental Health (DCMH) and Defence Mental Health Network (DMHN) at RAF Brize Norton. Requests to work flexibly and/or part time will be considered, taking into account business needs.

DCMHs are multi disciplinary teams comprising military and civilian staff: psychiatrists, mental health nurses, social workers, mental health practitioners and psychologists. The job is challenging and varied. Whilst there are similarities with NHS roles, to make the most of this opportunity you will need to be willing to embrace a different organisational culture, take on significant responsibility for risk management and apply your clinical skills in new and interesting ways.

Main duties of the job As the successful post holder, you will provide a rapid, timely and high quality mental health service to all patients referred to the Department of Community Mental Health (DCMH) for assessment and treatment of mental health problems and implementing changes as and when vital.

You will need to be experienced, enthusiastic and committed to service delivery and improvement.

Being able to cope well under pressure, be flexible and assertive and have the ability to communicate at all levels. Functioning as a member of the MDT, whilst working autonomously.

The post holder will provide flexible and individualised care packages to meet the mental health (MH) needs of military personnel with mental health problems.

We offer the following employee benefits:

• Free parking
• Learning and development opportunities
• Professional Registration Fees Re imbursed

Please be advised that the Department is conducting a review of all pay related allowances which could impact on those allowances that the post currently being advertised attracts.

About us The Ministry of Defence is a large, complex organisation that delivers defence capabilities for the UK. Our success depends on our people - the Whole Force regular and reservist military, civil servants and contractors, all working as one, working together seamlessly to deliver for our service.

We offer competitive pay, a wide range of benefits, and are committed to diversity, inclusion and equal opportunity. We have a Disability Confident Scheme (DCS) for candidates with disabilities who meet the minimum selection criteria.

Job responsibilities Duties and responsibilities of the role include but are not limited to:

• Receiving, appraising, and advising on the direct referrals for mental health problems from relevant General Practitioners/Medical Officers GP/MO.
• Providing initial assessment and formulation of the mental health and treatment needs for referred patients, planning, implementing, and evaluating care with a high level of autonomy.
• Delivering up to date, evidence based interventions for mental health problems based on guidance from the National Institute for Clinical Excellence (NICE) and the National Treatment Agency (NTA), which can include individual, group and tele therapy.
• Carry out comprehensive mental health assessments and make decisions about ways to positively manage risk.
• Devise creative and effective care packages of support for adult mental health, communicating effectively with clients/patients and professionals, both orally and in writing.
• Effective time management skills with the ability to work under pressure, planning own workload.
• Work flexibly in response to the developing needs of the service.

Please see attached Job Description and Person Specification for role requirements in further detail.

Selection Process At application stage you will be assessed against your CV:

• Please ensure you demonstrate that you have the required skills, knowledge, experience, qualifications and memberships in the CV section of the application form.
• Please provide information of how you meet the criteria set out in the Job Description. You may wish to further include examples of how you have tackled similar tasks or demonstrated the skills outlined in the job advert.

Artificial Intelligence can be a useful tool to support your application, however, all examples and statements provided must be truthful, factually accurate and taken directly from your own experience. Where plagiarism has been identified (presenting the ideas and experiences of others, or generated by artificial intelligence, as your own) applications may be withdrawn and internal candidates may be subject to disciplinary action.

At interview you will be assessed against the following:

NHS Knowledge and Skills Framework:

• NHS Health & Wellbeing HWB7 Interventions & Treatment
• NHS Information & Knowledge NHS IK1 Information Processing

You will also be required to provide a short case study, the case study will be provided 10 minutes before the interview.

The interview may consist of a mix of direct questions and clinical situation based scenarios.

Further Information

The sift will be completed within 10 working days of the vacancy closing date. Interviews will be held on a date to be confirmed.

There will be no reimbursement for any travel expenses for the interview.

Requests to work flexibly and/or part time will be considered, taking into account business needs. Please note the salary will be pro rata where part time hours are undertaken.

Where business needs allow, some roles may be suitable for a combination of office and working from home as part of a non contractual hybrid working arrangement. All office based employees will be expected to spend a minimum of 60% of their working time in office, subject to site capacity and any required workplace adjustments. Requirements to attend other locations for official business, or work in another MOD workplace, will also count towards this level of office attendance. Applicants can request further information regarding how this and other flexible working arrangements may work in their team from the Vacancy Holder (see advert for contact details). Defence Business Services cannot respond to any questions about working arrangements.

All employees joining Ministry of Defence who are new to the Civil Service will be subject to a 6 month probation period (unless otherwise advised) effective from the employment start date.

Successful candidates must meet the security requirements before they can be appointed. The level of security needed is basic check.

Access to the NHS pension scheme is available to the successful candidate.

If found successful for this position, you will be required to provide evidence of your immunity to Hepatitis B. Please note that evidence of your vaccination is not a proof of your immunity, but your serology levels will be required. Failure to provide sufficient evidence may result in the offer of employment being withdrawn.

To be considered for this role, qualifications and memberships detailed must be held in full, prior to submitting your application.

The post does NOT offer relocation expenses (move of home, excess fares or temporary transfer). Non Standard move applicants will be eligible for the full package, subject to eligibility.

As a result of the changes to the UK immigration rules which came into effect on 1 January 2021, the Ministry of Defence will only offer sponsorship for a skilled worker visa under the points based system, where a role has been deemed to be business critical. This role does not meet that category, and we will not sponsor a visa. It is therefore NOT open to applications from those who will require sponsorship under the points based system.

Should you apply for this role and be found to require sponsorship, your application will be rejected, and any provisional offer of employment withdrawn.

This vacancy is part of the A Great Place to Work for Veterans initiative.

The Civil Service embraces diversity and promotes equality of opportunity. The Ministry of Defence requires all candidates who are successful at interview to declare any outside interests. These declarations will be discussed with successful candidates following the interview process and before a formal offer of employment is made, as some outside interests may not be compatible with MOD civilian roles. This will not, in the majority of cases, prevent employment in MOD, but it is a measure that must be taken to ensure that appropriate mitigations can be put in place to manage any potential, perceived or actual conflicts of interest from the first day of employment.

The Ministry of Defence adopts a zero tolerance approach to unacceptable behaviours, which includes bullying, harassment, sexual harassment, discrimination, and victimisation . click apply for full job details