Mental Health Occupational Therapist


Company:	NHS Jobs
Salary:	£45,000 - £53,000
Hours:	Full-time
Location:	Leeds, LS2 9AE
Job type:	Permanent
Posting date:	20 Aug 2026
Closing date:	6 Sept 2026

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Summary

This is a new and exciting opportunity for an experienced Occupational Therapist to join our well-established Occupational Therapy team in a newly developed Mental Health focused Occupational Therapy role. This role offers a new opportunity to help shape an innovative model of mental health occupational therapy within Primary Care. In addition to our established primary care OT roles, this new post has a dedicated focus on proactive mental health rehabilitation and supporting patients with complex mental health needs who are at risk of becoming high users of primary care services. A significant proportion of the role will focus on identifying patients with an at-risk mental state early, providing timely rehabilitation, improving self-management, reducing dependency on primary care appointments and preventing deterioration that may otherwise lead to crisis presentations, secondary care referrals or hospital admission. Working alongside our well-established Occupational Therapy team, General Practitioners and the wider multidisciplinary team, the successful candidate will provide goal-focused interventions for patients experiencing significant functional decline because of mental illness and/or underlying neurodiversity. The postholder will play a key role in developing proactive care pathways across the PCN and maintaining strong partnerships with community mental health services, university wellbeing services and third sector organisations. The role will involve working collaboratively with the existing OT Team, Lead OT, Clinical Directors and Primary Care Managers. The new full-time occupational therapist will also be working with the existing OT team, providing interventions as part of the existing core OT service. The existing service is predominantly practice based, providing timely access to patients. The new occupational therapist will have a template of appointments, both face-to-face and telephone across both practices. Alongside the rest of the OT team, they will support the Lead Occupational Therapist in managing referrals, providing training and attending meetings such as our monthly Mental Health MDT. The candidate will also have access to CPD opportunities, funded training, and join a friendly and supportive team of experienced Occupational Therapists. Contributing to the core Occupational Therapy service, the postholder will be involved in a wide range of work to improve the outcomes of patients who require support with their everyday lives. This will include working directly with a diverse patient list, predominantly working with mental health conditions including neurodiversity, personality disorders, eating disorders, OCD, generalised anxiety and depression, as well as chronic pain, chronic fatigue, amongst other conditions. Experience of working with mental health and managing risk is essential. The successful candidate will be kind, empathetic and compassionate, with the ability to build trusting therapeutic relationships and help patients feel supported and at ease. They will possess strong occupational therapy knowledge and clinical reasoning skills and be confident applying occupational therapy within an innovative and evolving area of primary care practice. They will have experience in the assessment, management and rehabilitation of patients with complex mental health needs and a genuine passion for improving mental health outcomes. The postholder will be dynamic, proactive and resilient, with the confidence to work autonomously and make sound clinical decisions in complex situations. The successful candidate will be comfortable working within an environment where positive risk-taking and clinical judgement are essential. They will have a good understanding of mental health risk assessment, risk stratification and risk management within a primary care setting, recognising when to escalate concerns and work collaboratively with the wider multidisciplinary team. As this is a newly developed role, the ability to use initiative, adapt to change and contribute to the ongoing development of the service will be essential.

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