Psychiatric Services & Supervision

Background and General Objective
The primary responsibility of the psychiatrist consultant will be to actively participate in a project that seeks to integrate mental health services in settings for primary healthcare while working in close collaboration with the PUI's MHPSS Team, which is made up of MHPSS Specialists, MHPSS Team Managers, psychologists, and social workers, and is under the general direction of the MHPSS Coordinator. Considering the major objective of the project, the psychiatrist consultant is expected to be working in close touch with the trained general practitioners (GPs) and family doctors (on Mental Health Gap Action Program) who work within the Primary Health Care Center (PHCC). To be more specific, the psychiatrist will be in charge of two main scopes of work. The first scope is the provision of psychiatric consultations for moderate to severe Mental, Neurological, and Substance (MNS) Use Disorder cases referred by the PUI’s MHPSS Team and trained GPs in PHCCs following the ideal patient flow suggested by the National Mental Health Program. The second scope of duties focuses primarily on giving trained general practitioners (GPs) technical supervision through community of practice sessions (CoPs) for the clinical management of patients with mental health conditions. Psychiatrist consultant will be responsible for providing technical guidance, support, and confidence to trainees while demonstrating new skills and knowledge acquired or improved during the MhGAP training, which focuses on the management of persons with MNS disorders. In addition to that, s/he will receive external referrals of patients with lived experience of more severe MNS conditions and with imminent risk of self-harm or harming others. The psychiatrist will be roving in between the required number of PHCCs which are supported by PU-AMI under multiple donors, hence the psychiatrist may cover more than one area of responsibilities based on the PUI’s programming priorities as well as his/her availability. An elaborated description of tasks can be seen below.
Description
PU-AMI’s MHPSS Department is looking for a psychiatrist to perform the below-mentioned tasks
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Psychiatric Consultations,
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The psychiatrist will receive internal referrals of the cases with a varied severity of MNS conditions from PUI’s specialized MHPSS staff and PHCC’s trained GPs.
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The Psychiatrist will be responsible for evaluating, diagnosing, and treating patients with moderate to severe MNS conditions in close coordination with the PU-AMI MHPSS team and trained GPs while staying aligned with the NMHP suggested ideal patient flow.
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o In addition, s/he will prescribe psychotropic medication, order LIDT tests (adhering to the pertinent NMHP and PUI’s guidelines), and/or refer patients to the other needed specialized and nonspecialized services in close collaboration with the Social workers.
o The psychiatrist will follow up with patients to ensure that they are responding positively to treatment and make amendments to the treatment plan, when necessary, by including the trained GPs.
o The psychiatrist will conduct his/her consultations in PU-AMI-supported PHCCs and will provide house visits to patients with limited physical mobility and with severe MH complaints. o The psychiatrist will be responsible for documenting the mental health related data by filling out the relevant psychiatric assessment and follow-up forms for each patient visit as well as the relevant National Health Information System when it is requested/required.
Technical Supervision for the MH GAP trained health staff.
o The psychiatrist will individually supervise the trained GPs through the CoPs for the management of potential MNS cases while also technically supporting the PU-AMI’s MHPSS Team in particular during the case-focused discussions to be conducted either through in-person or remote modality.
o The psychiatrist will design the CoPs by staying align with the NMHP suggested supervision modality as well as by filling out the relevant templates to be able to keep pertinent proofing documents in place.
o The psychiatrist is expected to coordinate with the PUI’s MHPSS Specialist and MHPSS Team Manager for the quality and monitoring of those CoPs.
o The psychiatrist will adopt pre and posts tests to demonstrate the increased knowledge and skills after completion of the supervision cycle by utilizing templates to be given by PUI.
Qualifications:
o Experience in providing clinical supervision to trained (on MhGAP/Identification and referral of the MH cases) health staff/ MHPSS staff is mandatory.
o Comprehensive knowledge of the MhGAP training curriculum and implementation guidance is mandatory.
o Work experience (in terms of providing psychiatric consultations) in PHCCs or in projects that aim to integrate MHPSS services into Health platforms is desired.
Required documents
o CV
o Financial proposal (hourly rate, daily hours, other potential fees to be covered within the hourly rate)
o Financial proposal signed and stamped including the offer validity, payment terms and the starting available date.
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For Firms: Commercial Registration, VAT registration document and Passport Copy (if applicable) or ID copy for all personnel mentioned on the Commercial Registration in addition to legal representatives if not the same as mentioned on Commercial Registration, plus Fresh USD bank account.
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For Individuals: Passport Copy (if applicable), Ministry of Finance Number (MoF number document).
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o Brief clinical supervision plan explaining the techniques, objectives of each type of session, methods, and supervision strategy of the trained general practitioners who will be managing mild to moderate mental health conditions.
o The draft strategic plan for the clinical supervision should consider these following points; he frequency of the supervisory sessions; the potential methods for delivering the sessions; some major agenda points to be covered.
Duration
o Supervision is intended as a continuous process throughout the implementation of the project for a duration of 12 months based on a signature of a Framework Agreement between PUI and the Psychiatrist. In this agreement PUI has the right to stop the project’s implementation in case of funds cessation or other force majeures and PUI does not pledge to work exclusively with the Psychiatrist.
Geographical Coverage
o Based on the PUI’s MHPSS programming priorities, the psychiatrist consultant is expected to cover
more than one PHCCs in North, Beirut Mount Lebanon and South.
Selection criteria
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Technical evaluation
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Evaluation criteria are the following:
- Relevance and quality of the proposed methodology, namely:
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availability to visit the PHCC with regular frequency – to be clearly stated in the offer
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quality of the clinical supervision plan to non-specialized medical staff (general practitioners, family doctors, psychologists) – see details above
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experience in patients’ record keeping – suggested approach to be stated in the offer
- Experience in previous similar projects or psychiatric practice and capacity to present it:
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5-7 slides speaking in brief about their background and expertise to bring in the PUI project)
- Candidates profile
Only the technical offers reaching at least 70% of the score will be declared technically valid and selected for the next phase of evaluation
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Financial evaluation
Only the financial offers from the candidates with at least 70% of the technical evaluation score will be considered. A financial evaluation score will be calculated for each offer, starting on the lowest bid.
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Final evaluation
The final evaluation will combine both prior evaluations, accordingly a 70% moderation for the technical offer and a 30% moderation for the financial offer. The candidate who will have the higher score will be selected. The financial offer will be analyzed and possibly negotiated with the candidate within the limit of the available budget. An interview will be set accordingly to do the final selection.