Employer: Wrightington, Wigan and Leigh Teaching Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust
Employer type: NHS
Site: Royal Albert Edward Infirmary
Town: Wigan
Salary: £37,338 - £44,962 pa pro rata
Salary period: Yearly
Closing: 10/11/2024 23:59
ACST Practitioner (Access to Community Services Team)
NHS AfC: Band 6
Job overview
The Access to Community Services Team (ACST) currently has a vacancy for an enthusiastic and dynamic practitioner. This can be a nurse, an occupational therapist, or a physiotherapist. The vacancy is permanent full-time (37.5 hours).
The ACST is based primarily in the Emergency Care Centre at Royal Albert Edward Infirmary, where their remit is to plan and facilitate safe and early discharge from the Emergency Care Centre.
The team is dynamic and proactive in their approach to healthcare and currently provides a full operational service between the hours of 8 am - 6 pm, 7 days per week.
The successful candidate will have a good understanding of working within an acute setting with patients presenting with complex medical, functional, and social problems. Experience of working in a range of settings and knowledge of community services would be an advantage. This post involves working across professional boundaries and challenges traditional practice. To support this, we provide a sound supervision structure and training.
Evidence of personal development is essential.
Main duties of the job
The successful candidate will work with our established team consisting of Nurses, Occupational Therapists, and Physiotherapists and will have the ability to work independently and as part of a multidisciplinary team. You will be expected to perform comprehensive generic assessments within the Emergency Care Centre and short stay areas to achieve a safe and effective discharge from hospital.
Detailed job description and main responsibilities
Key results from the job holder
* To work as part of the ACST within Emergency Care, Short Stay areas, and Clinic areas to provide a quality service to all patients identified for or referred to the Team.
* To proactively seek out patients who would benefit from ACST assessment and ensure patients are signposted to a wide range of community-based services.
* To act as a source of knowledge on the management of patients regarding facilitated discharge and preventing unnecessary admissions, providing an advisory service to patients, relatives, carers, and other healthcare professionals.
* To take a role in the specialist assessment and treatment of patients who may have complex and/or chronic presentations and to determine clinical diagnoses and management indicated while maintaining records as an autonomous practitioner.
* To develop specialist knowledge around community services to enable appropriate signposting of patients being discharged.
* To work in conjunction with other ACST members ensuring patients follow a seamless care pathway and receive the highest standard of care.
* To participate in service improvement activities to ensure ACST achieves Team and Organisational Objectives.
* To educate and train health professionals and students in the management of patients identified for or referred to the ACS.
* Following training, will be able to interpret basic investigations as abnormal e.g., bloods and x-rays to contribute to the overall patient management plan.
* To produce informative and detailed information for out of Trust patient transfers for continuing patient management.
* To take delegated responsibility from the team leader for managing patients appropriate for the ACST and be responsible for providing specialist assessment and management plans for patients relevant to your discipline.
* To support Team Manager and Clinical Lead by engaging in specific projects to target and address the root cause of inappropriate readmissions to hospital.
* To support Service Manager and ACST Clinical Lead in the achievement of Team and Organisational Objective.
Planning and Organisational Duties
* To be responsible for a designated area of work, as agreed with the Team Leader. To plan and organise efficiently and effectively regarding patient management and use of time.
* To decide priorities for own work area, balancing other patient-related and professional demands, and ensure that they remain in accordance with those of the team as a whole.
* To deputise for the Team Leader in terms of operational issues as required.
* To be actively involved in the collection of appropriate data and statistics for the use of the ACST service.
* To support the Team Manager and Clinical Lead with service improvement initiatives to support the achievement of ACST and Organisational objectives.
* To undertake any other duties that might be considered appropriate by the Team Leader.
* To maintain own clinical professional development (CPD) by keeping abreast of any new trends and developments and incorporating them as necessary into your work.
* To undertake the measurement and evaluation of your work and current practices through the use of Evidence-Based practice projects, audit, and outcome measures, either individually or with the Team Manager/Clinical Lead. Use information gained to make recommendations for change.
* To exercise good personal time management, punctuality, and be consistent and reliable in relation to attendance.
Communications and Key Working Relationships
* To communicate complex patient-related information (as well as non-patient information) effectively and work collaboratively with other health professionals to ensure delivery of a coordinated multidisciplinary service.
* To communicate effectively with patients and carers to maximise rehabilitation potential and ensure understanding of the condition.
* To assess capacity, gain valid consent, and have the ability to work within a legal framework with patients who lack capacity to consent to treatment.
* To maintain accurate, comprehensive, and up-to-date documentation, in line with legal, departmental, and professional standards requirements.
Person specification
Qualifications
* Diploma or degree in occupational therapy/physio/nursing (as relevant).
* Professional registration.
* Evidence of post-qualification personal and professional development.
Skills
* Have an understanding of the core skills of Occupational Therapy within the D2A process.
* Supervisory skills.
* Able to maintain judgment under pressure.
* Effective written, verbal, and non-verbal communication skills.
* Able to manage own workload and determine priorities.
* Able to reflect and critically appraise own performance and utilise self-directed learning.
* Effective overall personal time management.
* Comprehensive clinical reasoning skills relevant to caseload.
* Ability to work flexibly.
Experience
* Range of experience of treating patients within an acute and/or community setting.
* Experience of managing own clinical caseload including ability to prioritise and delegate when appropriate.
* Experience of working as an autonomous practitioner.
* Experience of working as part of a multi-disciplinary team and contributing to ward meetings/handovers.
* Experience of assessing and treating patients with more complex needs.
Additional
* Clear vision of professional role.
* Clear interest in this area of practice.
* Access to own transport for work purposes (with business insurance).
* Participation in 7-day service provision.
* Speak English to an appropriate standard relevant to their role.
Our Trust prefers candidates to submit applications online. Please contact the Recruitment Team on 01942 244000 if you have difficulty applying online.
The Trust reserves the right to close adverts earlier than the stated closing date if there is a high volume of applications.
We endeavour to inform all applicants of the outcome of their application by email or SMS text message.
Guidance on Completing Your Application
Applications are scored against the person specification, therefore we recommend that you use the supporting information section of your application form to demonstrate how you meet the essential and desirable criteria for the role, providing illustrative examples where possible.
On-Call
Please note that some roles may require you to participate in an on-call rota, if the role is predominantly operational.
WWL has signed up to the Greater Manchester Continuous Service Commitment and will recognise your continuous or ‘unbroken’ service in any Greater Manchester Local Authority or NHS organisation.
You must have appropriate UK professional registration.
This post is subject to the Rehabilitation of Offenders Act 1974 (Exceptions) Order 1975 (Amendment) (England and Wales) Order 2020 and it will be necessary for a submission for Disclosure to be made to the Disclosure and Barring Service.
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