Play Specialist Team Leader

Band 6

Main area

Paediatrics

Grade

Band 6

Contract

Permanent

Hours

Full time - 37.5 hours per week (1 weekend in 4 rotation)

Job ref

396-8098774-DE-GV-Y

Site

Kingston hospital

Town

Kingston Hospital

Salary

£45,953 - £54,254 Pro rata, pa, incl. HCAS

Salary period

Yearly

Closing

14/08/2026 23:59

Home, community, hospital

Kingston and Richmond NHS Foundation Trust offers a range of fantastic opportunities to grow your career across both hospital and community settings in south London. Whether you're looking to build new skills or take your experience to the next level, we are uniquely placed to provide the right environment to support your professional development. With colleagues working in people’s homes, in community clinics, and in our two hospitals, we have an outstanding breadth of knowledge and experience to draw from.

Our commitment to exceptional care is reflected in being the first trust of our kind in London to achieve an ‘Outstanding’ rating from the CQC for both overall quality and leadership. We exist to provide the best possible care for our patients and we do that by giving our colleagues what they need to be their best at work. We have won numerous awards from the HSJ and Nursing Times for the way we support our colleagues across all our services.

We are proud to be recognised for our outstanding cancer care, children's services, pioneering surgical teams, and exceptional rehabilitation services. Our maternity services have been rated the "Best in London" by women surveyed by the Care Quality Commission (CQC), with parents travelling to Kingston to take advantage of our considerable experience and expertise.

Our Trust values

These words are important reminders, but it’s our behaviours that tell people who we are. We expect all colleagues to bring our values to life in their work.

• Compassionate: We provide care with kindness, understanding, and empathy for all.
• Inclusive: We embrace diversity and respect the unique contributions of every individual.
• Collaborative: We foster teamwork across all levels, working together and with our partners to deliver the best outcomes.
• Inspiring: We are committed to continuous improvement and excellence in patient care, staff development, and innovation.

Job overview

• To manage a team of hospital play specialists and help them to provide a high-quality holistic play service for children and their families, enabling them to feel safe and at ease within the hospital environment.
• To ensure that a high-quality play service is delivered to children in the hospital setting.
• To plan play programmes, including children undergoing invasive procedures, palliative care and other investigations, enabling young children and young people to understand and accept and co-operate with treatment.
• To co-ordinate work, providing day to day management and clinical supervision to less experienced staff.
• Provides training in therapeutic plan to other staff and careers.

Main duties of the job

1. To use Analytical and Judgement skills to use different avenues for intervention to address complex or conflicting needs of the child and family.

2. Plan and organise complex activities, requiring adjustments, Co-ordinated, organises work of play staff, adjusts work allocation to deal with emergencies, i.e. theatre lists or patient condition.

3. To work autonomously for therapeutic play and development of play strategies.

4. To manage, contribute and develop the maintenance of an age-appropriate environment where play and recreation occur naturally and participate in quality initiatives in the play and clinic teams.

Continued on attached JD...

Working for our organisation

Kingston and Richmond NHS Foundation Trust cares for more than half a million patients a year, from across Kingston, Richmond, Elmbridge (Surrey), Merton, Wandsworth and Sutton. In 2018, we became the first acute hospital trust in London to be rated “Outstanding” for overall quality and leadership by the national Care Quality Commission regulator.

We have approximately 350 beds and directly employ around 2,900 staff. Our trust provides a full range of diagnostic services and treatment services. Our main site is the Kingston Hospital site but we also run a number of outpatient clinics in the community, including in Raynes Park, Surbiton, Queen Mary's Roehampton and Teddington.

Detailed job description and main responsibilities

***Please see the attached supporting document/s (JD) which contains more information about the role in the job description and person specification***

NB: ensure any supporting statements align with the job description and person specification, as your application will be assessed against these criteria.

Person specification

Experience

Essential criteria

• Experience of effective working as a team member within the MDT
• Recent , comprehensive experience of working with children and/or young people in a health care setting in a variety of clinical areas

We support the NHS Flex for the Future pledge

We welcome conversations about flexible working from day one, including options such as adjusted hours, compressed hours and other arrangements. If flexibility matters to you, please talk to us - we’ll be happy to explore what’s possible for the role and the service.

Your recruitment team

The NHS South West London Recruitment Hub is your dedicated recruitment team, here to support you at every stage of the process. If you have a query, please contact us:

E: [email protected]

Your application

Please ensure your supporting statement clearly reflects the job description and person specification, as shortlisting will be based on these criteria.

Please refer to the latest UKVI guidance and ensure you have the appropriate right to work before applying for this role.

Use of Artificial Intelligence
We kindly ask that you avoid using AI tools to draft your application. We value authentic, individual responses that reflect your own experience and communication style.

References

Please provide a minimum of 3 years’ employment and/or education history, including professional email addresses (not personal accounts such as Hotmail or Gmail). If you cannot provide these, please inform the interview panel to avoid delays in pre-employment checks.

Closing date

To help us manage recruitment efficiently, some vacancies may close early once we have received a sufficient number of applications.

Shortlisting

If you are successfully shortlisted, you will be contacted by email or SMS from the South West London Recruitment Hub. Please check your registered TRAC email regularly.

Application feedback

If you do not hear from us within four weeks of the closing date, please assume your application has not been successful on this occasion.

Safeguarding and DBS Checks

We are committed to safeguarding children and vulnerable adults. For roles with direct access to these groups, an Enhanced Disclosure and Barring Service (DBS) check will be required. All staff are expected to understand and uphold their safeguarding responsibilities as part of their role.

Applicant requirements

You must have appropriate UK professional registration.

This post is subject to the Rehabilitation of Offenders Act 1974 (Exceptions) Order 1975 (Amendment) (England and Wales) Order 2020 and it will be necessary for a submission for Disclosure to be made to the Disclosure and Barring Service.

Further details / informal visits contact

Name

Hind Thomas

Job title

Senior sister

Email address

[email protected]

Telephone number

x2417