Advanced Clinical Practitioner

Job responsibilities

Expertise & Excellence in Clinical Practice

Deliver evidence-based personalised and compassionate care which places quality at the heart of specialist practice. Care will be responsive to individual patient needs and reflect current local protocols and national guidelines.

Utilise high levels of autonomy and advocacy, using analytical and judgemental skills in undertaking differential diagnosis to ensure the delivery of an expert level of care, developing their own and others knowledge within the speciality.

Manage their own caseload of patients including comprehensive review of patients, requesting diagnostics, reviewing results and creating and implementing management plans within the speciality and prioritise workload to meet patient and service need.

Independent and supplementary prescribing including discharge of patients, within current legislative and local frameworks.

Support development and implementation of personalised care pathways for the speciality through holistic needs assessment, planning and evaluation of care and all care interventions.

Implement pathways of care, adapting to patients emerging needs by ensuring a planned and co-ordinated approach to care, supporting enhanced recovery and reducing inappropriate admissions to improve patient experience and safety.

Refer directly to other health care professionals and specialist departments as necessary, to ensure optimal efficiency and quality of care.

Act as a patient advocate to facilitate the process of shared decision-making in respect to health, choice of treatment and care. Use interpersonal and communication skills where there may be significant barriers in order to build confidence. Ensure that patients individual needs are expressed and valued and individual management plans are understood.

Advise on diagnosis and symptom management for patients within the speciality. Evaluate response to interventions and advise on the adaptation of management and discharge plans.

Empower patients to self-manage their condition, undertaking risk stratification to determine those who can self-manage following education, those who will need guided support to self-manage and those who will need ongoing face-to-face support.

Work autonomously in the development and delivery of practitioner led or parallel clinics within AEC in line with National guidance and local service need.

Provide clinical advice and input to commissioning in relation to Acute Medical services as required.

Act as a resource, providing clinical expertise, specialist advice and support across service boundaries to ensure optimum liaison and co-ordination of care.

Undertake clinical competencies relevant to this specialist service to develop autonomous expertise in an advanced role. Actively integrate theory and practice.

Management & Leadership

Provide clinical advice and leadership to others across the organisation, acting as a role-model and demonstrating high standards of holistic care.

Support trainee practitioners including responsibility for annual appraisal where applicable.

Contribute to budget planning and management as required.

Contribute to annual improvement plans and continuously review their own performance against these plans, taking action or escalating where appropriate.

Promote an ethos of continual service improvement and lead delegated projects, monitoring progress in terms of milestones and key measures of performance.

Strive to motivate and involve others in developments in the speciality.

Contribute to the clinical governance agenda.

Attend Trust senior team meetings and contribute to the agenda and the strategic vision as required.

Communication

Take personal responsibility for ensuring effective communication between all service providers.

Demonstrate advanced empathetic interpersonal and communication skills in supporting, informing and advising patients and carers through diagnosis, treatment, disease progression, prognosis and supportive and palliative care where applicable. This may involve imparting significant news or supporting patients and carers during and following such consultations.

Effectively and sensitively communicate highly complex and sensitive information to emotionally distressed patients and family/carers at key points along the care pathway on a frequent basis.

Refer to other health professionals and outside agencies to ensure optimum care and ongoing support for individual patients/carers, and to ensure the seamless transition between primary and secondary care appropriate to patients individual needs and circumstance.

Develop and maintain links with local and national organisations which support the care of patients within this speciality.

Network both locally across the sector and nationally to ensure that services within the Trust are at the leading edge of development in Acute Medical care.

Create, manage and maintain robust links with inpatient specialities and community services to ensure patients are identified and moved swiftly into optimal care pathways to improve flow and patient outcomes.

Education

Support the development of trainee ACPs involved in the care of acute medical patients.

Identify and use educational strategies to deliver complex information to patients and carers.

Contribute to the development of patient training to support self-management and health promotion activities.

Influence the development of other professionals by leading or contributing to Trust-wide specialist education and training.

Deliver formal and informal teaching initiatives as part of the Trusts education strategy as agreed with the appropriate senior staff to ensure practice development, staff empowerment and improved care for patients.

Act as a mentor/clinical supervisor as appropriate.

Take personal responsibility for life-long learning and personal development through clinical supervision and appraisal. Actively engage with learning and development opportunities needed to work as an ACP and take appropriate action to ensure these needs are met.

Contribute to Trust-wide advanced practice education agenda.

Utilise a professional portfolio to develop enhanced clinical skills to deliver advanced service within speciality.

Develop and monitor skills using best available evidence to support development.

Quality, Audit, Innovation & Research

Work within their own professions code of professional conduct.

Contribute to the development of policies and clinical guidelines within the specialty.

Collaborate with other members of the multi-disciplinary team to develop and update multi-professional Trust operational policies and guidelines.

Maintain accurate patient records and ensure effective documentation to reflect the activity and delivery of specialist services.

Use creative reasoning, experience and vision to advance care.

Develop new skills in response to emerging knowledge and techniques.

Attend local forums to network and debate issues to inform the Advanced Clinical Practice role and service delivery.

Support the development of a research-based culture within the clinical area and act as a resource to others in relation to evidence-based acute medical care.

Ensure research findings are utilised as a basis for best practice.

Contribute to the development of clinical audit in their own specialist area.

Participate in clinical research relevant to their practice area.

Contribute to the identification of patients eligible for trial entry. Provide support to patients considering entry to clinical trials in relation to informed consent and advocacy.

Develop links and systems to seek the views of patient and carers to ensure service development is in line with user need.

Qualifications

Essential

• Registered professional, NMC, GPC or HPC registered
• Master's Level (MSc) Degree in Advanced Practice. An MSc in another relevant subject combined with a Post Graduate Certificate (PG cert) in Advanced Practice or credentialed portfolio is an acceptable alternative.
• Recognised level 7 History taking and clinical examination/Health assessment module
• Independent Prescriber
• Evidence of continued professional development within relevant clinical speciality
• ALS provider

Desirable

• Recognised Teaching Qualification
• Leadership course

Qualifications

Essential

• Experience of working autonomously within relevant medical speciality.
• Experience of trainee supervision and teaching
• Experience in delivering patient advocacy
• Experience in contributing to research, audit and evidence-based care
• Able to work with a diverse range of internal and external stakeholders

Desirable

• Proven leadership skills
• Experience in delivering service improvement

Skills

Essential

• Demonstrable clinical and procedural skills relevant to the speciality and willingness to expand further to meet service needs.
• Advanced knowledge of the range of presentations, diagnoses and current management options within the speciality area
• Evidence of planning and organisational skills
• Proven listening and counselling skills with the ability to manage complex situations and appropriately deliver sensitive and difficult outcomes
• Ability to clinically lead and influence others
• Excellent verbal, written, interpersonal and communication skills
• Able to manage own caseload
• Able to use skills of history taking and physical assessment to direct patient care
• Excellent decision making abilities and critical thinking skills
• Able to conduct and evaluate own projects successfully
• Demonstrate an understanding of the current national issues relevant to medical specialities
• Knowledge of quality standards and relevant NICE guidelines, CQUINs etc
• Knowledge and use of governance and risk assessment to improve quality and service development
• Ability to carry out and evaluate audit and research
• Proficient IT and presentation skills
• Ability to write reports and maintain accurate records

Personal Qualities

Essential

• Problem solver
• Team player
• Creative thinker
• Able to perform under pressure
• Diplomatic

Other Requirements

Essential

• Willingness to work weekends and evenings
• Flexible and positive approach to work
• Able to work across the whole health economy

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.

Certificate of Sponsorship

Applications from job seekers who require current Skilled worker sponsorship to work in the UK are welcome and will be considered alongside all other applications. For further information visit the UK Visas and Immigration website (Opens in a new tab).

From 6 April 2017, skilled worker applicants, applying for entry clearance into the UK, have had to present a criminal record certificate from each country they have resided continuously or cumulatively for 12 months or more in the past 10 years. Adult dependants (over 18 years old) are also subject to this requirement. Guidance can be found here Criminal records checks for overseas applicants (Opens in a new tab).

UK Registration

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