Band 7 Senior Mental Health Practitioner

Job summary
At Defence Primary Healthcare (DPHC) we are an inclusive, dedicated organisation working to provide outstanding care to our entitled personnel.

Are you a Band 7 Senior Mental Health Practitioner looking for an exciting role, working alongside the military, which offers numerous benefits and opportunities? If the answer is yes, then we are looking to appoint a professional and patient focused individual with a strong commitment to providing a high-quality service to work within our friendly and welcoming team at Hightown Barracks, Wrexham.

The vacant post is part time working 32 hours per week.

Could this be the role for you? If so, we'd love to hear from you!

Benefits

• Access to learning and development tailored to your role
• An environment with flexible working options
• A working culture which encourages inclusion and diversity
• NHS Pension
• Free parking
• 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.

Main duties of the job
The Senior Mental Health Practitioner will work within a multi-disciplinary team (MDT) setting to provide a specialised/occupational mental health service for all Service and entitled personnel within the Department of Community Mental Health (DCMH) and network as required.

The post holder will have extensive experience of delivering psychological therapy in a stepped care service.

The post holder will require robust clinical assessment skills and an understanding of an occupational role and needs of individuals presenting to the service.

Work with service personnel with complex common mental health disorder related problems for which cognitive behavioural therapy (CBT) is demonstrated to be clinically effective, individually, in groups and via face to face and digital platforms while undertaking a programme of training for this role.

To directly provide highly specialist psychological assessment and interventions to individuals and groups.

Clinically supervise less experienced therapists

To be responsible for ensuring clinical outcome data is routinely entered and appropriately collated, and also lead in service evaluation, outcome measurement, audit and research projects to benefit service users.

About us
Our success depends on our people our Whole Force regular and reservist military, civil servants and contractors, all working as one, working together seamlessly to deliver for us.

Our civil servants are a central part of this Whole Force, developing strategy, making policy, supporting ministerial decision-making and Parliamentary processes. In fact, with over 2,000 different roles working across 650 sites around the world, now really is an excellent time to join one of the largest, most exciting departments in government.

The Ministry of Defence is committed to attracting and retaining people from across the full range of backgrounds and enabling flexible ways of working as the norm. We offer maternity, adoption or shared parental leave of up to 26 weeks full pay followed by 13 weeks of statutory pay and a further 13 weeks unpaid, and paternity leave of 2 weeks full pay.

In return, you can expect a department that helps you learn and develop that recognises your expertise and contribution, both as an individual and part of a team.

If you've ever wanted to do more, see more, go further or be better, we have roles in more professions and vocations than ever before. Let's see where your future will take you, together.

Details
Date posted: 17 July 2026
Pay scheme: Agenda for change
Band: Band 7
Salary: £47,810 to £54,710 a year
Pro-rata *Pay award pending
Contract: Permanent
Working pattern: Part-time
Reference number: K0003-26-0214
Job locations: Mental Health Team (MHT) Building 10, Hightown Barracks, Wrexham, LL13 8RD, United Kingdom

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

• To provide a timely and high-quality mental health service to all patients referred to the DCMH for assessment and treatment of mental health presentations.
• A wide variety of clinical work depending on qualifications working within your abilities but also stretching your capability.
• To act as a clinical resource and liaise with Medical Officers/General Practitioners (MO/GP) and offer advice to the chain of command on mental health matters, the administrative management of personnel with mental health difficulties and mental health promotion.
• To work flexibly within 32 hours per week, with core service hours of 8am-5pm.
• The team will be operational across a network so you will need to be flexible in where and how care is delivered.
• To provide training in assessment and formulation and other CBT based practices to the team.
• Deputise for the team manager and hold delegated professional management of the team as required.

Please refer to the attached Job Description and Person Specification for the full list of duties.

Selection Process
At a pplication 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. Please see our candidate guidance for more information on appropriate and inappropriate use. Apply through our website

At interview you will be assessed against the following:

Technical Skills:

• NHS Health & Wellbeing HWB2 Assessment & Care Planning
• NHS Health & Wellbeing HWB6 Assessment & Treatment Planning
• NHS Health & Wellbeing HWB7 Interventions & Treatment
• NHS General NHS G6 People Management
• NHS General NHS G1 Learning & Development

You will also be required to answer questions on a short case study, which will be provided 10 minutes before the interview.

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

NHS Knowledge and Skills Framework - Apply through our website

Further Information
Where business needs allow, some roles may be suitable for a combination of office and home-based working. This is a non-contractual arrangement where all office-based employees will be expected to spend a minimum of 60% of their working time in office, subject to capacity and any required workplace adjustments. Requirements to attend other locations for official business, or work in another MOD office, will also count towards this level of attendance. Applicants can request further information regarding how this 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.

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.

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.

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.

There is no requirement to deploy as this is met by our uniformed personnel, but you will form the continuity of care required by our patients when based at home.

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.

Apply through our website

There may be occasions where it is not practicable or appropriate to interview all DCS candidates that meet the minimum criteria for the job. For example, in certain recruitment situations such as a high volume of applications, seasonal demand, or peak periods, the employer may wish to limit the overall number of interviews offered to both DCS and non-DCS applicants

If you need to advise us that you need additional help or reasonable adjustments for the recruitment process, please contact View email address on meeveem.com.

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. You will not be eligible and will not be considered for this post if you have been dismissed from a role for such unacceptable behaviours within the last five years. This will also apply if you resign or otherwise leave a role but, because of an adverse decision, would have been dismissed for gross misconduct had you continued in that employment. Pre-employment checks will be carried out.

The Ministry of Defence is committed to providing a safe and healthy working environment for its staff which includes educating them on the benefits of not smoking, protecting them from the harmful effects of second-hand smoke and supporting those who want to give up smoking. Under the Smoke-Free Working Environment policy, Smoking and the use of all tobacco products (including combustible and chewing tobacco products) will not be permitted anywhere in the Defence working environment. The policy is Whole Force and includes all Defence personnel, contractors, visitors and other non-MOD personnel. All applicants seeking, considering, or accepting employment with the Ministry of Defence should be aware of this policy and that it is already in place at a number of Defence Establishments.

Person Specification

Experience
Desirable

• An interest in working with the military.
• Experience of clinical leadership.

Provide a CV
Essential

• Please copy and paste your full CV as your response to this question; you will not be able to upload your CV as an attachment.
• Please ensure to refer to the essential criteria where applicable as your application may be rejected should insufficient information to shortlist be included.
• Please use double spacing where possible.

Behavior Statement
Essential

• Have you been dismissed for gross misconduct relating to bullying, harassment, discrimination or victimisation from any role in the past five years, or resigned or otherwise left a role but would have been dismissed for such gross misconduct because of an adverse decision, had you continued in that employment?
• Please respond with Yes or No as appropriate.

Registration Details
Essential

• Please provide your membership registration number.
• You are required to be registered with the relevant professional body, as detailed in the advert, prior to submitting your application.
• Your application will not progress should you fail to provide a valid membership registration number.

Qualifications
Desirable

• Experience of leading quality improvement programmes and/or service development.
• Qualifications and experience in other psychological therapies e.g. Eye Movement Desensitisation and Reprocessing (EMDR), Interpersonal Psychotherapy (IPT), Dynamic Interpersonal Psychotherapy (DIT).

Registrations and Memberships
Essential

• Registered Mental Health Nurse, Social Worker or Occupational Therapist (OT) with Post-graduate training and accreditation in National Institute for Health Care and Excellence (NICE) recognised modality for common mental disorders (e.g., CBT).
• Postgraduate Diploma in High Intensity CBT from a BABCP accredited training provider.
• Significant experience working as a psychological therapy practitioner in a stepped care service and demonstrating the competences as required.
• Registered under a professional body such as Health and Care Professions Council (HCPC) and Full Accreditation with the BABCP.

Disclosure and Barring Service Check
This post is subject to the Rehabilitation of Offenders Act (Exceptions Order) 1975 and as such it will be necessary for a submission for Disclosure to be made to the Disclosure and Barring Service (formerly known as CRB) to check for any previous criminal convictions.

UK Registration
Applicants must have current UK professional registration. For further information please see NHS Careers website .

Employer details
Employer name: Ministry of Defence (Defence Medical Services)
Address: Mental Health Team (MHT) Building 10, Hightown Barracks, Wrexham, LL13 8RD, United Kingdom
Employer's website: Apply through our website

Employer contact details
For questions about the job, contact: Jo Howl, View email address on meeveem.com