Job responsibilities
Job summary:
The
post-holder will manage a caseload and deal with a wide range of health needs
in a primary care setting, ensuring the highest standards of care for all
registered and temporary patients.
Clinical responsibilities:
- In accordance
with the practice timetable, as agreed, the post-holder will make
him/her-self available to undertake a variety of duties including surgery
consultations, telephone consultations and queries, visiting patients at
home, checking and signing repeat prescriptions and dealing with queries,
paperwork and correspondence in a timely fashion
- Making
professional, autonomous decisions in relation to presenting problems,
whether self-referred or referred from other health care workers within
the organisation
- Assessing the
health care needs of patients with undifferentiated and undiagnosed
problems
- Screening
patients for disease risk factors and early signs of illness
- In consultation
with patients and in line with current practice disease management
protocols, developing care plans for health
- Providing
counselling and health education
- Admitting or
discharging patients to and from the caseload and referring to other care
providers as appropriate
- Recording clear
and contemporaneous consultation notes to agreed standards
- Collecting data
for audit purposes
- Compiling and
issuing computer-generated acute and repeat prescriptions (avoiding
hand-written prescriptions whenever possible)
- Prescribing in
accordance with the practice prescribing formulary (or generically)
whenever this is clinically appropriate
- In general, the post-holder
will be expected to undertake all the normal duties and responsibilities
associated with a GP working within primary care.
Other responsibilities
within the organisation:
- Awareness of and
compliance with all relevant practice policies/guidelines, e.g.
prescribing, confidentiality, data protection, health and safety
- A commitment to
life-long learning and audit to ensure evidence-based best practice
- Contributing to
evaluation/audit and clinical standard setting within the organisation
- Contributing to
the development of computer-based patient records
- Contributing to
the summarising of patient records and read-coding patient data
- Attending
training and events organised by the practice or other agencies, where
appropriate.
Confidentiality:
- In the course of
seeking treatment, patients entrust us with, or allow us to gather,
sensitive information in relation to their health and other matters. They do so in confidence and have the
right to expect that staff will respect their privacy and act appropriately
- In the
performance of the duties outlined in this job description, the
post-holder may have access to confidential information relating to
patients and their carers, practice staff and other healthcare
workers. They may also have access
to information relating to the practice as a business organisation.
All such information from any source is to be regarded as strictly
confidential
- Information
relating to patients, carers, colleagues, other healthcare workers or the
business of the practice may only be divulged to authorised persons in
accordance with the practice policies and procedures relating to
confidentiality and the protection of personal and sensitive data.
Health & safety:
The post-holder will engage in a
full range of promotion and management of their own and others health and safety
and infection control, as defined in the practice health & safety policy,
the practice health & safety manual, and the practice infection control
policy and published procedures. This will include (but will not be limited
to):
Using personal
security systems within the workplace according to practice guidelines
Awareness of national
standards of infection control and cleanliness and regulatory / contractual /
professional requirements, and good practice guidelines
Providing advice on
the correct and safe management of the specimens process including collection,
labelling, handling, use of correct and clean containers, storage and transport
arrangements
Correct personal use
of Personal Protective Equipment (PPE) and ensuring correct use of PPE by
others, advising on appropriate circumstances for use by clinicians, staff and
patients.
Management of the full
range of infection control procedures in both routine and extraordinary
circumstances (e.g. pandemic or individual infectious circumstances)
Hand hygiene standards
for self and others
Managing directly all
incidents of accidental exposure
Management and advice
relating to infection control and clinically based patient care protocols, and
implementation of those protocols across the practice
Active observation of
current working practices across the practice in relation to infection control,
cleanliness and related activities, ensuring that procedures are followed and
weaknesses / training needs are identified, escalating issues as appropriate to
the responsible person
Identifying the risks
involved in work activities and undertaking such activities in a way that
manages those risks across clinical and patient process
Making effective use
of training to update knowledge and skills, and initiate and manage the
training of others across the full range of infection control and patient
processes
Monitoring practice
facilities and equipment in relation to infection control, ensuring that proper
use is made of hand cleansing facilities, wipes etc, and that these are
sufficient to ensure a good clinical working environment. Lack of facilities to
be escalated as appropriate to the responsible manager
Safe management of
sharps use, storage and disposal
Maintenance of own clean working environment
Using appropriate
infection control procedures, maintaining work areas in a tidy, clean and
sterile, and safe way, free from hazards. Initiation of remedial / corrective
action where needed or escalation to responsible management
Actively identifying,
reporting, and correction of health and safety hazards and infection hazards
immediately when recognised
Keeping own work areas
and general / patient areas generally clean, sterile, identifying issues and
hazards / risks in relation to other work areas within the business, and
assuming responsibility in the maintenance of general standards of cleanliness
across the business in consultation (where appropriate) with responsible
managers
Undertaking periodic
infection control training (minimum twice annually)
Correct waste and
instrument management including handling, segregation, and container use
Maintenance of sterile
environments
Equality and diversity:
The
post-holder will support the equality, diversity and rights of patients, carers
and colleagues, to include:
- Acting in a way
that recognizes the importance of peoples rights, interpreting them in a
way that is consistent with practice procedures and policies, and current
legislation
- Respecting the privacy,
dignity, needs and beliefs of patients, carers and colleagues
- Behaving in a
manner which is welcoming to and of the individual, is non-judgmental and
respects their circumstances, feelings priorities and rights.
Personal/professional development:
In
addition to maintaining continued education through attendance at any courses
and/or study days necessary to ensure that professional development
requirements for PREP are met, the post-holder will participate in any training
programme implemented by the practice as part of this employment, such training
to include:
- Participation in
an annual individual performance review, including taking responsibility
for maintaining a record of own personal and/or professional development
- Taking
responsibility for own development, learning and performance and
demonstrating skills and activities to others who are undertaking similar
work.
Quality:
The
post-holder will strive to maintain quality within the practice, and will:
- Alert other team
members to issues of quality and risk
- Assess own
performance and take accountability for own actions, either directly or
under supervision
- Contribute to the
effectiveness of the team by reflecting on own and team activities and
making suggestions on ways to improve and enhance the teams performance
- Work effectively
with individuals in other agencies to meet patients needs
- Effectively
manage own time, workload and resources.
Communication:
The post-holder
should recognize the importance of effective communication within the team and
will strive to:
- Communicate
effectively with other team members
- Communicate
effectively with patients and carers
- Recognize
peoples needs for alternative methods of communication and respond
accordingly.
Contribution to the implementation of services:
The
post-holder will:
- Apply practice
policies, standards and guidance
- Discuss with
other members of the team how the policies, standards and guidelines will
affect own work
- Participate in
audit where appropriate.
