Job responsibilities
JOB SUMMARY:
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 Relationships
(not exhaustive):
Patients, carers and relatives
Partnership Prescribing Leads
Partnership GPs and Nurses
Other members of the Primary Care Team (including Commissioners)
SWB Chief Pharmacist
Other members of the Secondary Care Team
Other relevant organisations/bodies
from time
to
time as
required
(e.g. CQC,
MHRA, GPhC,
etc)
Key duties and responsibilities
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.
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 centered care through
appropriate working with wider primary care / social care networks
Identify community health needs and participate
in the development of patient/family-centered 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
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.
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 ongoing need for
each medicine, a review of monitoring needs and an opportunity to support
patients with their medicines taking.
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.
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.
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).
Care
Quality Commission
Provide
leadership to the practice manager and GPs to ensure the practice is
compliant with CQC standards.
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.
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
Responsibilities for
information resources:
Records personally generated information.
Deals with sensitive/confidential
information related to patients and staff.
Responsibilities for
research and development:
Frequent requirement to feed KPl's
in to NHS England evaluation.
Changes and obligations:
This job description is
intended as a guide to the duties
and
responsibilities
of
the post, and should not be regarded as a complete list of those requirements under the "written
statement of the main terms and conditions of the employment"
The contents may be
amended from time to time, subject to developing service
needs.
CONFIDENTIALITY:
The post holder must maintain confidentiality
of information relating to patients, staff and other Health Service business.
HEALTH AND SAFETY:
Employees must be aware of the responsibilities placed on them under the Health &
Safety at Work Act (1974) and the Manual Handling
Operations Regulations (1992). This
ensures that the agreed safety
procedures are carried out to maintain a safe environment for employees, patients and visitors
to the PCN/Trust
If you are a manager you will be responsible
for the PCN/Trusts policy on Health and Safety
and
for taking all reasonable steps to maintain and where necessary to improve health and safety
standards. This will include training to ensure that all employees are able to carry out their health
and safety responsibilities effectively.
RISK MANAGEMENT:
All staff have a responsibility to report
all clinical and non-clinical accidents or
incidents promptly and, when requested, to co-operate with any investigation undertaken.