Health care assistant

Job summary

This is a rare opportunity in practice nursing.

We are one of the last remaining traditional small family practices and our much loved practice nurse, who has been with us for 25 years, is retiring.

This gives us an opportunity to rethink how we provide nursing care to our 2,200 patients. At this point we don't have fixed ideas and we are open to your suggestions.

This practice is consistently ranked in the top five in England for patient satisfaction and good relationships with our patients have always been important in our work.

What is important to us is that you are capable, that you fit in well into our small friendly team and that you can communicate well with our salt-of-the-earth patients.

Don't let a lack of primary care experience put you off from considering an application if you fit these criteria you may well be just what we are looking for.

As a guide we might look for 12 hours of health care assistant time at band 3 and 12 hours of band 5 or 6 nurse time. However more of one and less of the other might also work well. Our ideal working hours may prove challenging for one person, particularly if they don't live locally on the other hand, the opportunities of working at the Adderlane Surgery may just suit you perfectly!

Main duties of the job

The main duties we are looking for initially are an ability to take blood samples, check blood pressures and give injections.

Assist clinical staff in delivering treatments, preventative care, long-term condition management, and patient education.

Provide clinical support to nurse and GPs including basic clinical interventions and minor procedures under supervision.

Act as a chaperone and support specimen handling, minor operations, and clinical waste management in line with policies.

Participate in mandatory training, induction, appraisals, and ongoing clinical governance activities.

Maintain a safe, tidy, effective working environment at all times.

We would envisage your role developing according to the changing needs of the practice and according to your own interests and abilities.

About us

The Adderlane Surgery is one of the smallest family practices in the North East and can trace its origins to the 1870s. We believe in the importance of ready accessibility and approachability of all our team members and good long-term relationships within the team and between ourselves and the community we serve. Long term personal continuity of care is at the heart of what we seek to provide and we are proud of the fact that we have worked together in knowing our families over many years.

This is general practice with strengths you might have imagined 40 or 50 years ago something which our patients greatly appreciate and which we enjoy.

The latest GP patient survey ranks us as one of the best five practices in England and has done for a number of years.

We recognise that over-stressed staff of all grades do not perform to the best of their ability and we work hard to reduce the risk of our team members being overstrained. There are times when we are busy, but we feel these are well balanced by the times we are not and we work to make each other's work lives a pleasure and not a pain.

We are currently a team of two doctors, one nurse, a manager, a secretary and two receptionists and we all have an important role to play in delivering the great care we seek to provide why not come and join us?