Job summary
An exciting opportunity has arisen to join a new, innovative and dynamic team within our expanding Urgent Community Response, Same Day Response and Virtual Wards Team. Working into this expanding team in the community, we are looking for experienced and motivated Band 6 Nurses who are passionate about service development and providing high standard of patient centred care. You will be working closely within a multidisciplinary team of staff including Consultants, Nurse Practitioners, Occupational Therapists, and Physiotherapists, all of whom are committed to maintaining independence, promoting self-care and assisting patients in their usual place of residence. The team are collectively ambitious in working towards and maintain the national urgent community response standard, providing care to people their homes to help avoid hospital admissions and enable people to live independently for longer. Oftentimes, this post therefore requires you to work autonomously, when working across the city. Therefore possession of a full, valid UK driving licence and use of a suitable vehicle for work is essential for the role.
- Interview Date: 8 August 2025
- Full & Part Time Hours/Week
- You will be redirected to Trac to apply for the vacancy. Please expand the job details section and read all of the information before applying for the vacancy.
NO AGENCIES PLEASE
Main duties of the job
As a Specialist Nurse, you will use your clinical decision making through assessment and interpretation of clinical information to support community based patients. Those patients on the Frailty Virtual Ward experiencing an acute exacerbation of a frailty related condition will be proactively case managed, requiring frailty advice, addressing their unmet needs and improving their care coordination and well-being. Leadership qualities are necessary to support both the service delivery, and staff support and work allocation.
We are looking for enthusiastic, innovative and engaging individuals, who have a passion for the delivery of high quality patient care across the city. The candidates will have to be able to prioritise their own workload, oftentimes without supervision, have an excellent patient focused approach and be able to use their initiative as well as work as part of a multidisciplinary team.
The successful candidates will be hardworking, reliable, able to use their initiative, and work flexibly to respond to the service needs, this includes working evenings, weekends and bank holidays. The service is operational 24 hours a day, 7 days a week, 365 days a year. As a member of our multi-disciplinary team, you will work to meet the needs of a complex community patients, delivering care supporting early discharge and avoiding admissions to the acute hospital sites.
About us
Our staff oversee over 6,500 patient contacts every day, delivering high standards of healthcare from the following sites:
Freeman Hospital
Royal Victoria Infirmary (RVI)
Health Innovation Neighbourhood (on the former Newcastle General Hospital and Centre for Ageing and Vitality site)
Newcastle Dental Hospital
Newcastle Fertility Centre
Northern Centre for Cancer Care, North Cumbria
Northern Genetics Service
Cramlington Manor Walks
These include a range of flagship services which deliver cutting-edge care (supported by state-of-the-art diagnostic services in both radiology and pathology) and are a catalyst for innovation to support pioneering clinical practice in the NHS.
We also have offices at Regent Point in Gosforth and community sites.
Please see attached information on what Staff Benefits we have to offer at our Trust under 'Documents to download' or 'Supporting documents'.
For further information on The Newcastle upon Tyne Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust please visit: Careers | Newcastle Hospitals | NHS | Newcastle Hospitals and Newcastle Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust
Job description
Job responsibilities
The following criteria are essential, though support will be given as our commitment to upskilling your professional development:
- Evidence of leadership and managerial skills
- Excellent communication skills, both written and verbal
- Ability to prioritise own workload and able to support team member with this also
- Able to work under pressure and own initiative
- The ability to take blood tests is desirable
The Urgent Community Response Team is comprised of three distinct teams; the hospital avoidance team, the same day response team and the frailty virtual ward The aim of our team is to prevent avoidable hospital admissions for all house bound/Care Home residents in Newcastle and there is an expectation that the successful candidates would work across these teams.
The hospital avoidance team triages and assesses patients who have an acute concern from one of the 9 common clinical conditions set out by NHS England. They provide urgent care to people in their homes which helps to avoid hospital admissions and enable people to live independently for longer. Through this team, older people and adults with complex health needs who urgently need care, can get fast access to a range of health and social care professionals within two hours. This includes access to physiotherapy and occupational therapy, medication prescribing and reviews. Same Day Response operates in a similar way, responding to nursing calls requiring a same day or 2 hour visit that come in throughout the day, visiting a wide variety of patients citywide.
The Newcastle Frailty Virtual Ward (FVW) plays a vital role in supporting patients with acute frailty syndromes at their usual place of residence, both supporting early discharge and preventing hospital admission. Patients will be referred to the FVW from Front of House (Emergency Department (ED), Assessment Suite (AS)), Back of House ward step-down, (initially from Older Peoples Medicine (OPM)) and Community step-up locations. Following initial assessment to confirm diagnoses, eligibility and both acute and long-term care needs, patients will be admitted to the FVW and a multidisciplinary management plan devised and communicated to patient and carers. While on the FVW, patients will have access to most of the medical treatments available in hospital, therefore in working in partnership with the patient to achieve optimum levels of self-care, you will ensure the patient has the appropriate follow up in place. Home visits will be conducted as indicated by patient status, with regular face to face visits likely to be established initially, but later reviews may be conducted by telephone or video.
The successful candidate will have awareness of current evidence-based approaches to patient care and be confident in evaluating care plans and assessing ongoing needs within own level of competency, documenting changes accordingly thus maintaining accurate nursing records in accordance with NMC and Trust Policy. The successful candidate will also have excellent communication skills both with patients and their relatives and/or carers, and also with the wider MDT and have good knowledge of frailty and its management.
The successful candidate will ideally have experience in managing the acutely unwell patient and knowledge of the escalation process should a patient become too unwell to be managed safely in the community. Clinical skills such as history taking, auscultation and medication management is desirable.
Lone working is a significant part of the role and the candidate should be familiar with the Trust lone working policy. Lone working safety devices will be available to staff. The candidate will need to hold a full, valid drivers licence and have the use of a vehicle suitable to be able to perform home visits in.
The following dimensions are desirable, please see the job description for further essential criteria:
- On-going professional development
- Evidence of study or willing to undertake further leadership/management training
- Experience in peer to peer support
The Newcastle upon Tyne Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust define a nurse specialist as a qualified nurse where the primary purpose of role is to provide guidance and support based on advanced level knowledge to patients, carers and health professionals, which in this instance is within a virtual ward.
Within the sphere of specialist practice:
- Is working towards advanced knowledge and skills within specialist sphere of practice.
- Contributes to the facilitation of the planning, delivery and evaluation of care pathways for a designated group of patients.
- Support the development of nursing practice within the specialist field and contribute to the body of nursing knowledge.
- Contributes to training and education within specialist area.
Please note it is a requirement of The Newcastle upon Tyne Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust that all successful candidates who require a DBS for the post they have been offered pay for their DBS certificate.The method of payment is a salary deduction from your first months pay.
As a flexible working friendly organisation, we want to be sure that you can work in a way that is best for us and for our patients, and for you. Speak to us about how we might be able to accommodate a flexible working arrangement. If it works for the service, we will do our best to make it work for you.
Job description
Job responsibilities
The following criteria are essential, though support will be given as our commitment to upskilling your professional development:
- Evidence of leadership and managerial skills
- Excellent communication skills, both written and verbal
- Ability to prioritise own workload and able to support team member with this also
- Able to work under pressure and own initiative
- The ability to take blood tests is desirable
The Urgent Community Response Team is comprised of three distinct teams; the hospital avoidance team, the same day response team and the frailty virtual ward The aim of our team is to prevent avoidable hospital admissions for all house bound/Care Home residents in Newcastle and there is an expectation that the successful candidates would work across these teams.
The hospital avoidance team triages and assesses patients who have an acute concern from one of the 9 common clinical conditions set out by NHS England. They provide urgent care to people in their homes which helps to avoid hospital admissions and enable people to live independently for longer. Through this team, older people and adults with complex health needs who urgently need care, can get fast access to a range of health and social care professionals within two hours. This includes access to physiotherapy and occupational therapy, medication prescribing and reviews. Same Day Response operates in a similar way, responding to nursing calls requiring a same day or 2 hour visit that come in throughout the day, visiting a wide variety of patients citywide.
The Newcastle Frailty Virtual Ward (FVW) plays a vital role in supporting patients with acute frailty syndromes at their usual place of residence, both supporting early discharge and preventing hospital admission. Patients will be referred to the FVW from Front of House (Emergency Department (ED), Assessment Suite (AS)), Back of House ward step-down, (initially from Older Peoples Medicine (OPM)) and Community step-up locations. Following initial assessment to confirm diagnoses, eligibility and both acute and long-term care needs, patients will be admitted to the FVW and a multidisciplinary management plan devised and communicated to patient and carers. While on the FVW, patients will have access to most of the medical treatments available in hospital, therefore in working in partnership with the patient to achieve optimum levels of self-care, you will ensure the patient has the appropriate follow up in place. Home visits will be conducted as indicated by patient status, with regular face to face visits likely to be established initially, but later reviews may be conducted by telephone or video.
The successful candidate will have awareness of current evidence-based approaches to patient care and be confident in evaluating care plans and assessing ongoing needs within own level of competency, documenting changes accordingly thus maintaining accurate nursing records in accordance with NMC and Trust Policy. The successful candidate will also have excellent communication skills both with patients and their relatives and/or carers, and also with the wider MDT and have good knowledge of frailty and its management.
The successful candidate will ideally have experience in managing the acutely unwell patient and knowledge of the escalation process should a patient become too unwell to be managed safely in the community. Clinical skills such as history taking, auscultation and medication management is desirable.
Lone working is a significant part of the role and the candidate should be familiar with the Trust lone working policy. Lone working safety devices will be available to staff. The candidate will need to hold a full, valid drivers licence and have the use of a vehicle suitable to be able to perform home visits in.
The following dimensions are desirable, please see the job description for further essential criteria:
- On-going professional development
- Evidence of study or willing to undertake further leadership/management training
- Experience in peer to peer support
The Newcastle upon Tyne Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust define a nurse specialist as a qualified nurse where the primary purpose of role is to provide guidance and support based on advanced level knowledge to patients, carers and health professionals, which in this instance is within a virtual ward.
Within the sphere of specialist practice:
- Is working towards advanced knowledge and skills within specialist sphere of practice.
- Contributes to the facilitation of the planning, delivery and evaluation of care pathways for a designated group of patients.
- Support the development of nursing practice within the specialist field and contribute to the body of nursing knowledge.
- Contributes to training and education within specialist area.
Please note it is a requirement of The Newcastle upon Tyne Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust that all successful candidates who require a DBS for the post they have been offered pay for their DBS certificate.The method of payment is a salary deduction from your first months pay.
As a flexible working friendly organisation, we want to be sure that you can work in a way that is best for us and for our patients, and for you. Speak to us about how we might be able to accommodate a flexible working arrangement. If it works for the service, we will do our best to make it work for you.
Person Specification
Qualifications & Education
Essential
- Registered nurse (appropriate to branch)
- Current NMC registration
- Diploma plus specialist qualifications / experience within specialist area; prepared to take degree level study
- The post holder must hold a full UK driving licence
- Meets Nursing and Midwifery Council requirements for mentorship if relevant to role
Desirable
- Degree in health-related subject
Knowledge & Experience
Essential
- Some post registration experience within related area of practice
- Extended clinical practice underpinned by training supervision & assessment
- Evidence of ongoing continuous professional development
- Knowledge and understanding of relevant NHS policy or project specific policy context
- Has understanding / experience of adult / child safeguarding
Desirable
- Research or audit experience
- Evidence of contribution towards education and training programmes
Skills & Abilities
Essential
- Able to work independently and as a member of a team
- Evidence of good communication and interpersonal skills
- Effective report writing skills
- Good IT skills
- Effective organisation and time management skills
Desirable
- Venepuncture skills
- Change management skills and involvement in project work
Person Specification
Qualifications & Education
Essential
- Registered nurse (appropriate to branch)
- Current NMC registration
- Diploma plus specialist qualifications / experience within specialist area; prepared to take degree level study
- The post holder must hold a full UK driving licence
- Meets Nursing and Midwifery Council requirements for mentorship if relevant to role
Desirable
- Degree in health-related subject
Knowledge & Experience
Essential
- Some post registration experience within related area of practice
- Extended clinical practice underpinned by training supervision & assessment
- Evidence of ongoing continuous professional development
- Knowledge and understanding of relevant NHS policy or project specific policy context
- Has understanding / experience of adult / child safeguarding
Desirable
- Research or audit experience
- Evidence of contribution towards education and training programmes
Skills & Abilities
Essential
- Able to work independently and as a member of a team
- Evidence of good communication and interpersonal skills
- Effective report writing skills
- Good IT skills
- Effective organisation and time management skills
Desirable
- Venepuncture skills
- Change management skills and involvement in project work
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.
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).
Additional information
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.
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).
