Clinical Lead for Dysphagia | Kent Community Health NHS Foundation Trust

Posting date:	29 December 2025
Salary:	Not specified
Additional salary information:	£47,810 - £54,710 per annum pro rata
Hours:	Part time
Closing date:	04 February 2026
Location:	Folkestone, CT195DN
Company:	Kent Community Health NHS Foundation Trust
Job type:	Permanent
Job reference:	7706052/846-7706052-UJ

Summary

This is an exciting opportunity for a Dysphagia Specialist Speech & Language Therapist to join the Children’sTherapies Team in South East Kent, based in Folkestone.

This role encompasses leadership andclinical work in the community with children & families aged 0-19 years. The Children’s Therapies Team is anintegrated therapies team providing SLT, OT, Physiotherapy, SpecialistNurse Advisors & Care Co-ordinators to children & families within Kent.

You will be part of an innovative and cohesive team of dysphagia therapists. You will provide support to the families of children with dysphagia, as partof a wider MDT of integrated therapy services. You will access at least quarterly dysphagia group supervision and CPD sessions, whilst building links with external stakeholders. You will work with the Dysphagia leads to monitor, review and develop pathways to ensure the service is able to offer safe, efficient and effective assessment and intervention in a timely way.

You will be supported by two highly skilled Speech and Language Therapists, who can offer extensive training,supervision and support to upskill & enable you to develop and maintain your competencies.

Within yourrole, you will also have allocated time to support the team in the Folkestone and Hythe working with children with complex needs, in collaboration with band 7 colleagues.

Please contact Sonia Sivyer (sonia.sivyer@nhs.net), Eleanor Conway (eleanor.conway@nhs.net) or Emily Hadaway(emily.hadaway1@nhs.net).

· Supporting the Dysphagia pathways across South East Kent

· Managing a complex/ specialist clinical caseload across0-19 years

· Participating effectively in supervision, training and support to enhance your CPD

· Participating in reflective practice and ongoing learning within these clinical fields

· Supporting colleagues with completing theirdysphagia competencies and specialist training

· Supporting towards service policy and clinical care pathways acrossKCHFT for dysphagia

· Contributing to service evaluation and care pathway design to meet the needs of the caseload ·Maintaining dysphagia competencies via CENs and CPD to meet the needs of the South East Kent dysphagia caseload.

The role will includeboth virtual and face to face working. Hybrid working is supported. We pride ourselves in the support and opportunities offered to staff at all stages in their career including; regular meetings with your line manager, access to supervision and in house & external training.

We offer regular CPD opportunities for the team, where we come together to share knowledge, skills and experience. Our South East Kent locality covers the areas of Ashford, Folkestone and Dover.

Being a driver would beessential. We would strongly advise that you speak to one of our recruiting staff and arrange a visit.

Rated ‘outstanding’ by the CQC, we’ve got a passion for delivering high standards of patient care and excellent services to improve the health of our communities. To do this we need outstanding people who share our values compassionate Aspirational Responsive Excellent

We know a commitment to equity, diversity and inclusion leads to better patient care and a happier workforce. We pride ourselves in being diverse and welcome applications from people with varied backgrounds, perspectives and experiences

We ask for information about your protected characteristics on our application forms. This isn’t visible to anyone involved with shortlisting or interviewing you, except when you choose to be considered under the guaranteed interview scheme due to disability. Short listers will see two ticks alongside your application to ensure they apply the principles of the scheme to your submission

The data we collect helps us to ensure we are attracting diversity in our applicants, that all our colleagues have equitable access to career opportunities and supports us on our journey to being a Great Place to Work

As a flexible working friendly organisation, we want you to be able to work in a way that is best for us, for our patients and for you. Talk to us about a flexible working arrangement that won’t involve sacrificing time for personal interests or family commitments. We’ll support you to work flexibly in a way that will suits us both

See where you can go with KCHFT career pathways

Please note: at this stage, the role is open only to colleagues currently employed within Kent and Medway NHS Trusts and the Kent and Medway Integrated Care Board (ICB). Nursing vacancies are also open to Student Nurses and Newly Qualified Nurses.

Job responsibilities

As a community Trust, many of our roles require individuals to be able to drive to perform their duties. Where driving is a requirement of the role, you will be asked to confirm that you hold a full UK driving licence or a full driving licence issued by an EU country (not exchanged from a non-EU country) to proceed with your application. We are committed to supporting candidates with disabilities into employment. If you are unable to drive due to a disability, please contact the Recruitment Team via kentchft.recruitment@nhs.net, quoting the vacancy reference number, so we can support you further.

The job description and person specification gives you all the information you need about this role. Please look carefully at the criteria in the person specification and tell us what you have done that shows you meet this in your application. If you need an application form in an alternative format please let our recruitment team know. All information you supply on your application should, to the best of your knowledge, be true and accurate.

Still have questions? The recruiting manager would love to hear from you, their contact details can be found in the job advert.

We can get a lot of applications for some roles so to be in with the best chance of being shortlisted please make sure you apply as soon as possible. A vacancy may close early if there is a lot of interest in the job.

At KCHFT we strongly encourage colleagues in clinical and non-clinical roles who have direct or social contact with patients to be fully vaccinated. In this way we will be doing all we can to ensure your safety and that of your colleagues and the patients we serve.

Find out more about the community differencehere.

Good luck! We can’t wait to meet you and welcome you to #teamKCHFT, #cometocommunity.


This advert closes on Sunday 18 Jan 2026