Clinical Adviser Leadership Mentor Application Form

RCSLT Clinical advisers and leadership mentors play a vital role in supporting the profession, strengthening clinical practice and developing confident, effective leadership across speech and language therapy.

Clinical Advisers

RCSLT advisers support members by providing expert advice on clinical practice, therapy resources, and professional development, while acting as a trusted voice for the profession. They help connect the RCSLT to clinical expertise across its membership, contribute to research priorities, standards, guidelines and policy development, and support responses to government, legal and media enquiries. Advisers also represent the RCSLT on advisory and guideline development groups, including NICE consultations, and play a key role in influencing policy and advancing practice within their specialist field, while maintaining their own professional development and registration.

Leadership mentors

Leadership mentors are experienced speech and language therapists who support other members by offering practical guidance on leadership challenges such as managing change, influencing, workforce planning, service sustainability, patient safety and measuring outcomes. Based across key population areas, mentors provide a trusted source of support to help members develop leadership capability, strengthen services and navigate complex organisational issues, contributing to the growth of individuals, organisations and the profession as a whole.

This survey has 25 questions, mostly tick box or short text but also including a supporting statement.

In submitting an application, you are indicating consent for RCSLT to process your application and that you agree with the requirements of the role. Before completing this form, please ensure that you are aware of what the role/s you are applying for entail. This is a combined application form so please state clearly if you are applying for one or both roles. and whether you would be happy to be considered for either. Please do contact RCSLT Professional Enquiries who will be happy to discuss any questions you may have – 020 7378 3012.

As part of this online application you will be asked to provide a supporting statement, this should be no more than 1500 words.

Please be aware that if you are applying for the Leadership Mentor role or a dual role you will need to include reference to the following within your statement:

• Up-to-date knowledge of local/national policy and legislation
• Lobbying, influencing and/or campaigning
• Clinical business skills (e.g. writing a business case, health economics, etc.
• Service model development
• Outcome-based procurement
• Workforce (e.g. use of data, workforce planning, etc.)
• Public health
• Quality assurance
• Technology (e.g. telehealth, AAC)
• Clinical audit
• Development of guidance, standards and/or strategy papers, and
• Other (please specify)

The RCSLT will seek occasional feedback from members to evaluate the effectiveness of the scheme and to help to inform the evolution of the adviser role to suit the changing member requirements.

RCSLT is committed to promoting a diverse workforce and to have active policies which eliminate unfair discrimination. RCSLT does not discriminate on any grounds other than the ability to carry out the job.

As part of this online application, you are required to submit a supporting statement. Please note that the Leadership Mentor role and the Adviser role are separate positions, although they share some overlapping skill requirements. If you are applying for both roles (a dual role), your supporting statement should clearly indicate how your experience and skills meet the requirements of each role individually.

Leadership Mentor role

The role of a Leadership Mentor involves advising and/or mentoring members on a range of leadership and service-level issues, which may include leading or managing a service, service redesign, responding to financial pressures, developing business cases, and workforce challenges. Support may be provided as one-off advice or through a more ongoing mentoring relationship, to be agreed between the mentor and mentee.

If you are applying for the Leadership Mentor role, please write a detailed statement outlining your suitability for this role. Your statement should reference the relevant skills and experience you can bring, and it would be helpful to include details of any formal or informal leadership and/or mentoring learning and development you have undertaken.

Adviser role (and dual-role applicants)

If you are applying for the Adviser role, or for a dual role (Leadership Mentor and Adviser), your supporting statement must also include evidence of your experience and expertise in the areas listed below, where relevant to the role(s) you are applying for:

• Up-to-date knowledge of local and national policy and legislation
• Lobbying, influencing and/or campaigning
• Clinical business skills (e.g. writing a business case, health economics)
• Service model development
• Outcome-based procurement
• Workforce planning (e.g. use of data, workforce modelling)
• Public health
• Quality assurance
• Technology (e.g. telehealth, AAC)
• Clinical audit

Applications will be reviewed by the RCSLT Review Panel and, if approved, the RCSLT may contact your manager (where applicable) to confirm their support. Successful applicants will be asked to complete a skills matrix to support the effective allocation of member queries and will receive an induction, including access to relevant RCSLT resources. The RCSLT will also seek occasional feedback to evaluate and further develop the scheme in line with member needs.

Role of the Clinical Adviser and /or Leadership Mentor:

The role of an RCSLT Clinical Adviser is to:

• to help to respond to members’ requests for specialist advice in a specific clinical area, where RCSLT staff do not have the clinical knowledge base to do so. to help develop/review/consult on professional guidance being developed by or being updated by the RCSLT
• to advise on/review consultation from external organisations i.e. NICE on behalf of the RCSLT as requested by the RCSLT where appropriate
• to respond to media requests on behalf of the RCSLT where appropriate to aid in the review/sign off of Bulletin articles relating to own areas of expertise as appropriate

  The role of an RCSLT Leadership Mentor is to:

  • to help to advise members on a range of issues including leading or managing a service, service redesign, making business cases and workforce issues.
  • to provide mentorship to members facing issues regarding leadership, management of services or calls for redesign/cuts to services, including building business cases and workforce issues.
  • to be involved with/advise the RCSLT regarding leadership issues and best practice to help inform guidance, influencing and learning tools/resources

  Responsibilities and standards

  1. The Clinical Adviser/Leadership mentor should restrict their advice to their professional subject matter area or area of expertise only.

  2. When providing advice on behalf of the RCSLT, a Clinical Adviser/Leadership Mentor should be aware at all times that they must adhere to the guidelines, policies and general information published by the RCSLT and act as an impartial expert.

  3. Where a Clinical Adviser/Leadership Mentor is not aware of the RCSLT’s current guidance on a particular issue, this should be sought prior to providing response with external guidance documents.

  4. Any advice/guidance given should follow the RCSLT’s ethos of using an evidence lead approach

  Quality Control

  1. It is an expectation that RCSLT Clinical Advisers/Leadership Mentors will adhere to some standard performance criteria.

  2. RCSLT Clinical Advisers/Leadership Mentors should not provide advice on client-specific issues and should only provide general advice on issues related to a specific clinical area or setting.

  3. If the Clinical Adviser/Leadership Mentor receives a request for assistance directly, it should be provided to the RCSLT Professional Enquiries Coordinator for tracking purposes. The request will then be logged and formally assigned to the Clinical Adviser/Leadership Mentor. Note: Facilities, information and resources will be made available to RCSLT Clinical Advisers/Leadership Mentors by the RCSLT where requested for the purpose of fulfilling this role.

  4. Telephone queries should always be followed up with an email query for tracking purposes. The Clinical Adviser/Leadership Mentor should respond to queries directly to the original enquirer, although this can be directed through the Professional Enquiries Coordinator if requested. Any response should be copied to the Professional Enquiries Coordinator for tracking purposes.

  5. In passing a query from the RCSLT to a Clinical Adviser/Leadership Mentor, a response time will be agreed between the RCSLT and the Clinical Adviser/Leadership Mentor. This should normally be five working days, but may be longer in some instances where determined by mutual agreement. The response time will be recorded by the RCSLT, and action will be taken to hasten a response if not received by the expiry time.

  6. If the Clinical Adviser/Leadership Mentor is unable or unlikely to respond to a query due to illness, injury or any other cause, the Professional Enquiries Coordinator should be.