Physician Associate

Job responsibilities

Job Description Physician Associate

The post holder will work within their clinical competencies as part of a multi-disciplinary team to provide expertise in clinical management, provide face to face structured clinical assessments, manage long term conditions and improve patient access by addressing both the public health and social care needs of patients in the GP practice(s) that make up the Primary Care Network.

The post holder will provide leadership on quality improvement and clinical audit and well as managing some aspects of the Quality and Outcomes Framework.

This role is pivotal to improving the quality of care and operational efficiencies so requires motivation and passion to deliver an excellent service within general practice.

Key duties and responsibilities

1. Professional responsibilities

Take the UK PA National Re-Certification Exam every six years - required for Physician Associates AND maintain your professional registration working within the latest Code of Professional Conduct (CIPD)

Undertake statutory and mandatory training as required by the practice

Demonstrate clinical leadership

Pro-actively promote the role of the PA within the practice and externally to key stakeholders and agencies

Respect patient confidentiality at all times and does not divulge patient information unless sanctioned by the requirements of the role.

2. Clinical duties

Provide first point of contact for patients presenting with undifferentiated, undiagnosed problems, utilising history taking, physical examination, problem-solving and clinical decision-making skills to establish a working diagnosis and management plan working in partnership with patients.

Undertake as agreed surgery based consultations for emergency or routine problems including management of long-term conditions. In addition, undertake telephone consultations / home visits and participate in duty rotas

Instigate necessary invasive and non-invasive diagnostic tests or investigations and interpret findings/reports within the scope of a PAs practice. Discuss the result and implications of laboratory investigations with patients

Utilise clinical guidelines and promote evidence-based practice

Offer a holistic service to patients and their families, developing where appropriate an on-going plan of care/support with an emphasis on prevention and self-care

Refer patients directly to other services or agencies using appropriate referral pathways

Ensure safe handover of care within and outside the practice as appropriate

Work directly with members of the practice primary health care team and support integrated patient centred care through appropriate working with wider primary care / social care networks

Identify community health needs and participate in the development of patient/family-centred strategies to address them

Contribute to the practice quality targets to consistently achieve high standards of safe, evidence-based, cost-effective patient care and service delivery

3. Patient safety and quality improvement

Identify and provide leadership on areas of clinical services requiring improvement. Conduct own audits and improvement projects and work with colleagues. Present results and provide leadership on suggested change. Demonstrate continuous QI activity focused upon patient safety as specified. Contribute to national and local research initiatives. Provide leadership to the practice manager and GPs to ensure the practice is compliant with Care Quality Commission (CQC) standards.

4. Longterm condition clinics

See patients in multimorbidity clinics and in partnership with primary healthcare colleagues and implement improvements to patients medicines, including de-prescribing. Manage own caseload and runs own long-term condition clinics. Review the on going need for each medicine, a review of monitoring needs and an opportunity to support patients with their medicines taking.

5. Care home visits

Manage own caseload of care home residents. Undertake clinical assessments with patients with multimorbidity and implement own individualised care plans changes. Also order relevant monitoring tests. Work with care home staff to improve safety of residents.

6. Domiciliary visits

Manage own caseload of vulnerable housebound patients at risk of hospital admission. Implement ordering of monitoring tests and conduct appropriate clinical assessment. Attend and refer patients to multidisciplinary case conferences.

7. Service development

Develop and manage new services that are built around evidence-based practice e.g. NICE guidance, where new medicine/recommendations allow the development of a new care pathway (e.g. new oral anticoagulants for stroke prevention in atrial fibrillation).

8. Care Quality Commission

Provide leadership to the practice manager and GPs to ensure the practice is compliant with CQC standards.

9. Training

Provide education and training to primary healthcare team on therapeutics and medicines optimisation. Provide training to visiting medical, nursing and other healthcare students where appropriate.

10. Continual Professional Development

Participate in continuing professional development opportunities to keep up-to-date with evidence-based knowledge and competence in all aspects of the role to meet clinical governance guidelines for Continuing Professional Development (CPD) and a Personal Development Plan (PDP) utilising a reflective approach to practice. This requires 50 hours of CPD every year: a minimum of 25 hours must be in accredited direct learning programmes

Qualifications

Essential

• Post graduate diploma or degree (Physician Associate)
• Experience of working as a Physician Associate in a primary care environment in the last 12 months
• Ability to effectively triage, assess and diagnose
• Wound care
• ECGs
• Chaperone procedure
• Requesting pathology tests and processing the results, advising patients accordingly
• Diabetes
• Hypertension
• Asthma
• Immunisations (routine, childhood and travel)
• Understand the importance of evidence-based practice
• Broad knowledge of clinical governance
• Ability to record accurate clinical notes
• Ability to work within own scope of practice and understanding when to refer to GPs
• Excellent communication skills (written and oral)
• Strong IT skills
• Clear, polite telephone manner
• Competent in the use of Office and Outlook
• EMIS/SystmOne/Vision user skills
• Effective time management (planning and organising)
• Ability to work as a team member and autonomously
• Good interpersonal skills
• Problem solving and analytical skills
• Ability to follow clinical policy and procedure
• Understanding of the audit process
• Understanding of clinical risk management
• Polite and confident
• Flexible and cooperative
• Motivated, forward thinker
• Problem solver with the ability to process information accurately and effectively, interpreting data as required
• High levels of integrity and loyalty
• Sensitive and empathetic in distressing situations
• Ability to work under pressure/in stressful situations
• Effectively able to communicate and understand the needs of the patient
• Commitment to ongoing professional development
• Effectively utilise resources
• Punctual and committed to supporting the team effort
• Flexibility to work outside of core office hours
• Disclosure Barring Service (DBS) check
• Occupational Health Clearance

Desirable

• Masters Level Study
• Member of Physician Associate Managed Voluntary Register
• Experience in triage
• Spirometry
• Knowledge of public health issues in the local area
• Awareness of issues within the wider health arena
• Knowledge of health promotion strategies
• Understand the requirement for PGDs and associated policy
• Understanding of the audit process

Disclosure and Barring Service Check

This post is subject to the Rehabilitation of Offenders Act (Exceptions Order) 1975 and as such it will be necessary for a submission for Disclosure to be made to the Disclosure and Barring Service (formerly known as CRB) to check for any previous criminal convictions.

UK Registration

Applicants must have current UK professional registration. For further information please see NHS Careers website (opens in a new window).