Job summary
We are recruiting for two GP Assistants (GPAs) to join our expanding team here at Villa Street. The GPAs will play a pivotal role within the
practice, spanning across the Nurse, GP and Administrative teams. Employing a
combination of clinical knowledge and a good understanding of medical terminology,
systems and processes, the GPAs will provide patient facing health care and high
level clinical administration support for the practice clinicians.
Each GPA will be supported to successfully complete a GPA Skills Certificate in their first year in position. The GPAs will be mentored by a clinical team with regular
allocated time for mentorship with a named GP Lead, attending weekly nurse team
clinical supervision meetings, as well as having protected time for training
and neighbourhood level peer support.
We see this position as being perfect for a fully qualified GPA, or a fantastic opportunity for a Health Care Assistant to develop their clinical skills whilst balancing patient facing time with scheduled administrative time. We'd be just as keen to hear from experienced primary care administrators who are looking to move their career in a clinical direction.
Add in 5 weeks holiday per annum, bank holidays, weekends and the NHS pension - this could be just right for you!
Main duties of the job
The main duties of the GPA role focusses on two areas:
The Patient Facing Health Care will be appointment based focussing on: phlebotomy; interpreting and advising on urine dipstick results, taking observations such as blood pressure, pulse, respiratory rates, oxygen levels; 24hr blood pressures; performing wound care; giving immunisations, Vitamin B12 injections and flu vaccinations, performing holistic health assessments (including home visits for housebound patients) and explaining treatments to patients so they know what to expect.
The clinical administration element will support our clinicians and increase our effectiveness by focussing on: processing incoming documents coding and allocating to GP for review; inputting clinical information on insurance reports and allocating to GP for completion; assisting admin and nurse teams to manage the long term conditions call and recall process; arranging referrals to healthy lifestyle services; managing clinical equipment stock levels in the practice.
We see this role as one to develop over time with support of the wider team and playing to the strengths of the successful candidates. We are looking for at least two GPAs to ensure there is resilience built into the team.
About us
At our heart, Villa Street is a neighbourhood surgery with traditional values of providing safe and caring health care with a continuity of care for those patients that need it. This is carefully balanced with our understanding that the world is changing and there are opportunities to develop our services to be as effective as we can so that we can provide really good personalised care and also be a satisfying place to work.
We have 7 GPs + 3 GP trainees, 4 Nurses, 9 Reception/Admin and a Manager. We place an emphasis on working collaboratively, valuing the individual, listening to each other, learning from experience, sharing ideas, refining our ways of working, all contributing to a good service provision.
We are outward looking and actively engaged with our Primary Care Network (PCN) and Federation ( two partners are Federation Directors). This has created lots of career opportunities for the Villa Street team for example one of our nurses took on the Nurse Development Lead role for the PCN, our Health Care Assistant is completing a Nurse Associate qualification, our Reception Lead was promoted to manage the Enhanced Access service. All of our partners have additional interests and roles such as GP training, a Senior Lecturer at Greenwich Uni, co-chair of Partnership Southwark, Community Derm specialist, Children and Young People GP Lead for our PCN.
We work hard, we care hugely and we have fun!
Come and find out more about us!
Job description
Job responsibilities
Patient
Facing Health Care
Perform Phlebotomy as requested by the clinical
team
Perform urine dipstick tests, interpreting
results so as to advise what actions are needed
Take observations such as blood pressure,
pulse, respiratory rate and oxygen levels and know when and how quickly to
escalate the findings
24 hour blood pressure readings
Perform height and weight checks, including
calculating a BMI and delivering healthy lifestyle advice to the patient
Perform basic wound care including dressings
Giving immunisations and B12 injections
Home visits for the above tasks where needed
including for holistic health assessments
Explain some treatment procedures to patients
e.g. H pylori (GP to prescribe), smears, how to take a FIT or other test
High
Level Clinical Administration
Filing and reviewing incoming documents on
DOCMAN, inputting some clinical codes to Emis record before allocating to
clinician.
Review and issue patient requests for brief
summaries, discussing any concerns with a GP
Complete some clinical information on insurance
paperwork e.g. height, weight, BP, blood results before forwarding to a
clinician for final completion.
Work with the admin team to liaise with outside
agencies such as hospital teams to ask for clinical advice, the hospital
calling through results, the @home team to communicate basic information
Work with the nurse and admin teams to assist
with call and recall management and monitoring for chronic diseases
Arrange referrals to services such as weight
management, podiatry and diabetes prevention as directed by the clinical team.
Work with the admin team to assist in monitoring
and managing the eReferral system in-boxes and workflow manager on Emis
Manage clinical equipment stock levels in the
practice including ordering of stock, distributing to clinical rooms and
organising the store cupboard
Manage PPA (personally administered
prescription claims) submissions
Job description
Job responsibilities
Patient
Facing Health Care
Perform Phlebotomy as requested by the clinical
team
Perform urine dipstick tests, interpreting
results so as to advise what actions are needed
Take observations such as blood pressure,
pulse, respiratory rate and oxygen levels and know when and how quickly to
escalate the findings
24 hour blood pressure readings
Perform height and weight checks, including
calculating a BMI and delivering healthy lifestyle advice to the patient
Perform basic wound care including dressings
Giving immunisations and B12 injections
Home visits for the above tasks where needed
including for holistic health assessments
Explain some treatment procedures to patients
e.g. H pylori (GP to prescribe), smears, how to take a FIT or other test
High
Level Clinical Administration
Filing and reviewing incoming documents on
DOCMAN, inputting some clinical codes to Emis record before allocating to
clinician.
Review and issue patient requests for brief
summaries, discussing any concerns with a GP
Complete some clinical information on insurance
paperwork e.g. height, weight, BP, blood results before forwarding to a
clinician for final completion.
Work with the admin team to liaise with outside
agencies such as hospital teams to ask for clinical advice, the hospital
calling through results, the @home team to communicate basic information
Work with the nurse and admin teams to assist
with call and recall management and monitoring for chronic diseases
Arrange referrals to services such as weight
management, podiatry and diabetes prevention as directed by the clinical team.
Work with the admin team to assist in monitoring
and managing the eReferral system in-boxes and workflow manager on Emis
Manage clinical equipment stock levels in the
practice including ordering of stock, distributing to clinical rooms and
organising the store cupboard
Manage PPA (personally administered
prescription claims) submissions
Person Specification
Qualifications
Essential
- GCSE grade 5 or above in Mathematics
- GCSE grade 5 or above in English Language
Desirable
- GP Assistant Certificate qualification
- Phlebotomy qualification and experience
- Certificates in Information Governance, Basic Life Support, Anaphylaxis, Adult & Child Safeguarding level 3, Sepsis Awareness, Infection Control
Experience
Essential
- Excellent verbal and written communication skills
- Proven IT skills
- Experience of working in a health care, general practice or primary care setting
- Experience of working as part of a multi-disciplinary team
- Understanding of medical terminology
Desirable
- Experience of promoting health and well-being
- Experience of Make Every Contact Count (Vital 5)
- Working knowledge of EMIS Web, Tquest, Docman and Ereferrals (eRS)
- Working knowledge of clinical coding
- Working knowledge of referral processes and hospital departments
- Working knowledge of clinical terminology
Personal Experience and Qualities
Essential
- Evidence of time management skills and ability to prioritise
- Takes ownership and accountability of workload and personal development
- A commitment to team working and contributing to a good working environment.
- Ability to understand new information and apply learning.
- Ability to learn by experience, recognising mistakes when they happen and learning from them.
- Ability to reflect on own actions, considering the impact our own actions have on others and be open/receptive to feedback.
- Insight into how to evaluate own strengths and development needs, seeking advice where appropriate
- Tolerant and respectful of differing attitudes, views, roles and responsibilities of others.
- Ability to deal with non-routine and unpredictable nature of the workload and be receptive to change and innovation.
- Ability to work on own initiative
- Ability to take part in reflective practice and clinical supervision activities
Desirable
- Evidence of recent work-based learning or self-directed learning
Person Specification
Qualifications
Essential
- GCSE grade 5 or above in Mathematics
- GCSE grade 5 or above in English Language
Desirable
- GP Assistant Certificate qualification
- Phlebotomy qualification and experience
- Certificates in Information Governance, Basic Life Support, Anaphylaxis, Adult & Child Safeguarding level 3, Sepsis Awareness, Infection Control
Experience
Essential
- Excellent verbal and written communication skills
- Proven IT skills
- Experience of working in a health care, general practice or primary care setting
- Experience of working as part of a multi-disciplinary team
- Understanding of medical terminology
Desirable
- Experience of promoting health and well-being
- Experience of Make Every Contact Count (Vital 5)
- Working knowledge of EMIS Web, Tquest, Docman and Ereferrals (eRS)
- Working knowledge of clinical coding
- Working knowledge of referral processes and hospital departments
- Working knowledge of clinical terminology
Personal Experience and Qualities
Essential
- Evidence of time management skills and ability to prioritise
- Takes ownership and accountability of workload and personal development
- A commitment to team working and contributing to a good working environment.
- Ability to understand new information and apply learning.
- Ability to learn by experience, recognising mistakes when they happen and learning from them.
- Ability to reflect on own actions, considering the impact our own actions have on others and be open/receptive to feedback.
- Insight into how to evaluate own strengths and development needs, seeking advice where appropriate
- Tolerant and respectful of differing attitudes, views, roles and responsibilities of others.
- Ability to deal with non-routine and unpredictable nature of the workload and be receptive to change and innovation.
- Ability to work on own initiative
- Ability to take part in reflective practice and clinical supervision activities
Desirable
- Evidence of recent work-based learning or self-directed learning
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.