Expertise & Excellence in Clinical Practice Deliver evidence-based personalised and compassionate care which places quality at the heart of specialist practice. Care will be responsive to individual patient needs and reflect current local protocols and national guidelines. Utilise high levels of autonomy and advocacy, using analytical and judgemental skills in undertaking differential diagnosis to ensure the delivery of an expert level of care, developing their own and others knowledge within the speciality. Manage their own caseload of patients including comprehensive review of patients, requesting diagnostics, reviewing results and creating and implementing management plans within the speciality and prioritise workload to meet patient and service need. Independent and supplementary prescribing including discharge of patients, within current legislative and local frameworks. Support development and implementation of personalised care pathways for the speciality through holistic needs assessment, planning and evaluation of care and all care interventions. Implement pathways of care, adapting to patients emerging needs by ensuring a planned and co-ordinated approach to care, supporting enhanced recovery and reducing inappropriate admissions to improve patient experience and safety. Refer directly to other health care professionals and specialist departments as necessary, to ensure optimal efficiency and quality of care. Act as a patient advocate to facilitate the process of shared decision-making in respect to health, choice of treatment and care. Use interpersonal and communication skills where there may be significant barriers in order to build confidence. Ensure that patients individual needs are expressed and valued and individual management plans are understood. Advise on diagnosis and symptom management for patients within the speciality. Evaluate response to interventions and advise on the adaptation of management and discharge plans. Empower patients to self-manage their condition, undertaking risk stratification to determine those who can self-manage following education, those who will need guided support to self-manage and those who will need ongoing face-to-face support. Contribute to the development and delivery of practitioner led or parallel clinics within Cardiology in line with National guidance and local service need. Act as a resource, providing clinical expertise, specialist advice and support across service boundaries to ensure optimum liaison and co-ordination of care. Undertake clinical competencies relevant to this specialist service to develop autonomous expertise. Actively integrate theory and practice. Management & Leadership Provide clinical advice and leadership to others across the organisation, acting as a role-model and demonstrating high standards of holistic care. Support junior practitioners including responsibility for annual appraisal where applicable. Contribute to annual improvement plans and continuously review their own performance against these plans, taking action or escalating where appropriate. Promote an ethos of continual service improvement and lead delegated projects, monitoring progress in terms of milestones and key measures of performance. Strive to motivate and involve others in developments in the speciality. Contribute to the clinical governance agenda. Attend team meetings and contribute to the agenda where required. Communication Take personal responsibility for ensuring effective communication between all service providers. Effectively and sensitively communicate highly complex and sensitive information to emotionally distressed patients and family/carers at key points along the care pathway on a frequent basis. Refer to other health professionals and outside agencies to ensure optimum care and ongoing support for individual patients/carers, and to ensure the seamless transition between primary and secondary care appropriate to patients individual needs and circumstance. Develop and maintain links with local and national organisations which support the care of patients within this speciality. Network both locally across the sector and nationally to ensure that services within the Trust are at the leading edge of development in Cardiology care. Create, manage and maintain robust links with inpatient specialities and community services to ensure patients are identified and moved swiftly into optimal care pathways to improve flow and patient outcomes. Education Support the development of multi-professional trainees involved in the care of acute medical patients. Utilise educational strategies to deliver complex information to patients and carers. Contribute to the development of patient training to support self-management and health promotion activities. Contribute, where required, to Trust-wide specialist education and training. Deliver formal and informal teaching initiatives as part of the Trusts education strategy as agreed with the appropriate senior staff to ensure practice development, staff empowerment and improved care for patients. Act as a mentor/clinical supervisor as appropriate. Take personal responsibility for life-long learning and personal development through clinical supervision and appraisal. Actively engage with learning and development opportunities. Contribute to Trust-wide education agenda. Utilise a professional e-portfolio to develop enhanced clinical skills as defined in the general and cardiology ACP curriculum. Develop and monitor skills using best available evidence to support development. Quality, Audit, Innovation & Research Work within their own professions code of professional conduct. Contribute to the development of policies and clinical guidelines within the specialty. Collaborate with other members of the multi-disciplinary team to develop and update multi-professional Trust operational policies and guidelines. Maintain accurate patient records and ensure effective documentation to reflect the activity and delivery of specialist services. Use creative reasoning, experience and vision to advance care. Develop new skills in response to emerging knowledge and techniques. Attend local forums to network and debate issues to inform the Advanced Clinical Practice role and service delivery. Support the development of a research-based culture within the clinical area and act as a resource to others in relation to evidence-based acute medical care. Ensure research findings are utilised as a basis for best practice. Contribute to the development of clinical audit in their own specialist area. Participate in clinical research relevant to their practice area. Contribute to the identification of patients eligible for trial entry. Provide support to patients considering entry to clinical trials in relation to informed consent and advocacy. Develop links and systems to seek the views of patient and carers to ensure service development is in line with user need.