Community Practitioner

Job overview

The successful candidate will be part of a dynamic and flexible service providing unplanned and urgent care. The team support patients through acute episodes of ill health in their own homes as an alternative to hospital. They provide enhanced and complex care in a crisis then hand stable patients to Planned Care colleagues.

The successful person should have excellent communication skills, strong decision making ability and clinical expertise, together with a drive and passion for improving the way healthcare is provided.

The service operates from 24 hours a day 7 days per week including bank holidays. As this is a community based post a full UK driving license and access to a car is essential.

The Trust has a thorough induction programme providing support and guidance, regular staff engagement, feedback sessions and a supportive team ethos.

Main duties of the job

To be professionally accountable for the delivery of standards of professional practice and behaviours as set by the Nursing & Midwifery Council.

To deliver compassionate person-centred care, and treat patients, service users, their families and their carers with consideration, dignity and the respect you would want for yourself or your family. To promote public health and well-being.

To be accountable for :

Ensuring safe and effective clinical practice.

Enhancing the patient’s experience.

Ensuring effective contribution to the delivery of the organisation’s objectives.

Efficient and effective use of resources

Detailed job description and main responsibilities

Ensure a high standard of safe clinical care and record keeping in accordance with Nursing and Midwifery Council, national legislation and local standards.

Take personal responsibility for actions and omissions, and fully recognise personal accountability.

Practise within an ethical framework based upon dignity and respect for the well-being and safety of patients and clients.

Act as a change agent, developing clinically effective practice through the effective utilisation and integration of evidence based practice within own work area.

Contribute to the development and implementation of evidence-based protocols, standards, policies and clinical guidelines within own work area.

Ensure a culture of continuous quality improvement through the use of audit, patient feedback and reflection on practice by self and other members of the team.

Promote a clean and safe environment for staff, patients and visitors by ensuring compliance with legislation, policies and protocols including health and safety, healthcare associated infection prevention, clinical governance, including risk management and critical incident reporting and root cause analysis.

Demonstrate effective communication within the multi-professional team regarding patient care.

Undertake interventional procedures with appropriate consent

Assess the risks involved in the care of patients and ensure utilisation of practices and protocols to minimise those risks, including safe use of medical devices.

Report incidents and near misses promptly and appropriately and take effective action to minimise future risk

Provide specialist advice to own and other professions on therapeutic interventions and clinical practice.

Implement practices that are appropriate to patient and service need through in-depth knowledge, implications of and applying epidemiological, demographic, social, political and professional trends and developments.

Lead by example, develop self and other staff, and influence the way care is given in a manner that is innovative, open and responds to individual needs.

Provide clinical supervision to other staff.

Work harmoniously and effectively with colleagues, patients and clients and their carers, families and friends, seeking advice from senior practitioners as necessary.

Practise within the scope of personal professional competence and extend this scope as appropriate to service needs.

Delegate aspects of care to others and accept responsibility and accountability for such delegation.

Participate in peer review of own practice.

Day to day supervision/training of staff/students.

Critically appraise and synthesise the outcomes of relevant research, evaluations and audits and apply the information when seeking to improve practice.

To assess individuals holistically using a range of different assessment methods, use physical examination skills, order diagnostic tests for client group.

Incorporate health promotion and prevention into care plans, and comprehensively assess patients for risk factors and early signs of illness.

Utilise ‘making every contact count’ as an approach to change behaviour through interactions with individuals, carers, families to support them in making positive changes to their physical and mental health and wellbeing

Plan and co-ordinate complete episodes of care, delegating and referring to other practitioners as appropriate to optimise health outcomes and resource use.

Safely use patient group directives (PGD)/ non-medical prescribing as appropriate

Use professional judgement in managing care events and capture the learning from these experiences to improve patient care and service delivery.

Work within defined boundaries of practice.

Ensure an effective and efficient patient’s journey by planning and co-ordinating of the episode of care /caseload including the smooth transition to other settings, promoting safe and effective discharge from the service and optimising communication with interdisciplinary and interagency teams as required.

Within a multidisciplinary team environment, develop a culture of person-centred care.

Promote a caring and compassionate environment where equality and diversity issues are respected and patients are enabled to be partners in their care.

Contribute to the development of care and services by ascertaining patient and carer experience/feedback and ensure complaints are managed in line with organisational policy, including the dissemination of learning points.

Ensure that everyone within the sphere of care is treated with dignity and humanity, understanding individual needs, showing compassion and sensitivity, and provide care in a way that respects all people equally.

Enable patients/clients to learn about their conditions and treatment by coordinating the implementation of plans appropriate to their preferred approach to learning, motivation and developmental stage.

Be proactively involved in undertaking activities that monitor and improve the quality of healthcare and the effectiveness of own and others’ practice.

Communicate effectively across a range of circumstances and individuals.

Contribute to the development of an organisational culture that supports continuous learning and development, evidence-based practice and succession planning.

Support the appraisal process by ensuing that personal development plans are developed and that they are consistent with the team’s and organisation’s objectives, succession planning and workforce development and support professional revalidation

Network with peers across professional groups and clinical disciplines promoting the exchange of knowledge, skills and resources. Have high-level communication skills and contribute to wider development of practice by publicising and disseminating work through presentations at conferences and articles in the professional press.

Demonstrate effective use of resources in decision-making and propose appropriate strategies to enhance quality, productivity and value in own sphere of work.

Strive constantly to improve practice and health outcomes so that they are consistent with or better than national and international standards.

Take an innovative and proactive approach to the redesign of clinical services, linked to organisational priorities and in support of improved outcomes.

Support the development and implementation of the Nursing, Midwifery and Health Visiting Strategy for the organisation.

Within clinical area ensure knowledge and implementation of the organisations quality and safety agenda.

Develop and maintain a working knowledge of local, national and professional strategy and policy, ensuring that organisational goals and values are reflected in personal objectives.

Demonstrate the ability to contribute to policy and strategy development at a departmental and organisational level and, where appropriate, national level.

Demonstrate compliance to the pledges of the NHS Constitution 2012 and Trust values.

Act in a way which is consistent with the values based approach to care delivery.