Consultant Psychiatrist - Community Mental Health - Bridgwater

We are seeking a permanent, full time (10 PAs per week) Consultant to join our team of four community consultants and an ACP, covering the Bridgwater area. This role is within the Community Mental health service for working age adults. The community psychiatrists work together as a team, offering general support, cross cover arrangements for leave and have offices grouped together. The responsible doctor for patient care is determined by GP alignment. This post provides senior psychiatric input to a small number of GP practices in and around Bridgwater. The GP population catchment area for Bridgwater CMHT is 120,000 which is within Royal College recommendations. The average number of new referrals to the whole CMHS was 950 in 2025 and a percentage of these are seen by doctors, either singly or jointly with another team member.

The clinical work will involve the assessment and psychiatric treatment of patients either directly, or through the supervision of other team members. Caseload will include patients with SMI, complex cases with medical comorbidities, diagnostic assessments, joint worked cases, cases with specific medication supervision requirements, ADHD with significant comorbidity. To offer clinical leadership to the CMHT and to act as an advisor to the team, particularly with respect to patients whose mental health needs are complex and / or carry high risk. The post-holder can opt to join the senior out-of-hours on-call rota subject to availability. This is a 1 in 11 rota operating 5pm to 9am on weekdays; at weekends the rota operates from 9am on Saturday morning to 9am on Monday morning. This rota provides senior medical cover including Responsible Clinician duties to all the in-patient wards in the Trust. The senior on-call rota also involves MHA assessments in the two Hospital Place of Safety suites (located in Yeovil and Taunton), the general and community hospitals, police custody centres and in the community. However, most of the work is in the Place of safety suites and ED. Assessments in the Hospital Place of Safety are not routinely undertaken at night for patients arriving after 1am (at the discretion of the nurse in charge).