Family and Patient Support Therapist

St Margaret’s Hospice Care has a fantastic opportunity for a Family and Patient Support Therapist to join ourr team.

• Salary: £23,952.07 to £28,842.81 (equivalent to a full time salary of £39,920.11 - £48,071.35)
• Location: Taunton and Yeovil Hospices
• Contract: Permanent, part time
• Hours: 22.5 per week.  Although the majority of work will be within normal working hours, some evening and weekend work will be needed. 

You won’t just be joining a fantastic team – you’ll be part of a welcoming, community minded charity. Our mission is to provide excellent specialist palliative care for patients and support to their families. Everyone here contributes and has a part to play towards our goal. If you speak to any of our staff or volunteers, they will tell you how the patient is at the heart of everything they do. So, if you’re looking for a role where you can really make a difference, working as part of a supportive team, we could be a perfect match.

What can you expect to be doing? 

We are seeking a practitioner qualified to deliver specialist psychotherapeutic support to individuals and groups. 

As part of our Supportive Care Service, you will provide evidenced based, therapeutic support to patients with a palliative diagnosis, families, children and young people who have been, or are about to be bereaved of someone significant to them. 

This cross-county role will be based in our Taunton and Yeovil Hospice sites and will see clients as out-patients, in their own homes and at other community venues.  

You will work alongside the wider supportive care team of counsellors and therapists. 

Your day to day work will include: 

• Working within therapeutic boundaries, managing a complex caseload of patients and clients with specialist psychological needs in relation to a life limiting illness
• Monitoring and triaging requests for psychological therapies, assessing and identifying best therapeutic response
• Supporting the practitioners within the team and delivering clinical supervision
• Supporting the development and delivery of therapeutic practices within the supportive care team
• Collaborative working with other healthcare professions and the multi-disciplinary team
• Providing a timely and responsive pre and post bereavement service for families, children and young adults

What will you be good at?

You will need:

• To be qualified to practice as a specialist counsellor, psychotherapist, systemic practitioner or equivalent.

• Current relevant professional registration / accreditation.

• An understanding of loss and grief and its impact on individuals and families and their social networks.

• Experience of having worked in a healthcare or multi-disciplinary setting.

• Excellent communication and presentation skills.

There will be the requirement to travel by car across the whole County including rural communities. 

What can we offer you?

Holiday entitlement

• 33 days holiday including bank holidays rising to 35 days after 1 year, and increasing with length of service (pro-rata if part-time)
• Recognise continuous service for clinical staff paid at band 5+ who join directly from the NHS or another hospice
• Ability to buy and sell annual leave

Pension scheme

• NHS employees eligible to continue with their NHS pension scheme*
• Non-NHS employees will receive 6% employer and 5% employee contribution.

Award-winning Employee Assistance Programme for you and your family offering:

• Vitality & wellbeing health portal for non-emergency care
• Unlimited access to 24/7 online GP Consultations for employees, their partners, and dependent children as well as Expert Case Management
• Confidential and free 24-hour Employee Assistance
• Counselling and support
• Legal, financial, and medical information and advice 

And more…

• Life assurance cover – 2x salary
• Health Cash Plans - help with covering the cost of healthcare needs by providing cashback on a range of health benefits
• Blue Light Discount Card
• Enhanced maternity leave*
• Excellent learning and development opportunities
• Free on-site parking in Yeovil and Taunton
• Volunteering and fundraising opportunities

*Eligibility criteria applies

Additional Information

If you’d like to learn more about our team or have an informal chat before applying, please contact Zoe Capon, Supportive Care Services Lead, at zoe.capon@st-margarets-hospice.org.uk or 01823 333822.

As we are managing this recruitment in-house, we ask recruitment agencies not to contact us.

For queries about the recruitment process, please email Recruitment@st-margarets-hospice.org.uk.

We welcome applications from diverse backgrounds, and you’re welcome to get in touch with any questions before applying.

Please note that we are unable to offer visa sponsorship at this time.

If you’d like to join us as our Family and Patient Support Therapist, we’d love to hear from you.

Closing date: 16/04/26

DBS Information

This role requires a criminal background check via the disclosure procedure.

The Disclosure and Barring Service offers a confidential checking service for transgender applicants. This route gives applicants the choice not to have any gender or name information disclosed on their DBS certificate and is available for all levels of DBS check.