Clinical Practitioner, Band 6

Job summary

Are you an experienced Band 6 looking for a new challenge! An exciting opportunity has arisen to join the newly established Gloucestershire Medical Hub Virtual Ward team and be part of a friendly, supportive and dynamic multi-disciplinary team.

This is part of the national Virtual Wards Programme, an exciting transformation in how care is planned and delivered in England, building on the innovative Covid-19 Virtual Wards work over the first two years of the pandemic.

In Gloucestershire our Virtual Ward provides specialist led care for a variety of patients including those with respiratory conditions, frailty, acute kidney injury and heart failure, but with anticipated expansion in other pathways. This care is provided to them in the comfort of their own homes using an advanced personal remote monitoring platform, enabling them to safely leave hospital sooner (or not come into hospital at all).

The Virtual Ward Hub team work together to assess and provide support enabling early discharge from hospital or avoiding admission to hospital. The team also supports patients residing in care homes.

This is an exciting moment as we look to the future with clarity on what we already do well and where we need to focus our energies to make an even bigger difference for the people we serve

Come and be part of a newly established, forward-looking service

Work with a range of health and care professionals

Support providing care to patients in their own homes-use innovative digital technology

Main duties of the job

The Band 6 Clinical Practitioner will provide clinical care and ensure that evidence- based practice is inherent in all aspects of care and treatment.

You will work as an integral part of the multidisciplinary team, working closely with acute and community practitioners, taking referrals from Primary and Secondary Care across Gloucestershire localities, and reviewing patients who can be managed at home. The role offers an exciting opportunity to be part of a new and developing service model, working in the NHS@Home virtual ward hub providing acute care within the community.

This role will work flexibly and across key services including SDEC, Frailty Assessment Service, Respiratory, Heart Failure and community SPCA services, to ensure robust service offer and to build expertise in these key areas. The post holder will work collaboratively with the virtual ward consultants, operational leads, GPSI and wider Multi-professional Team taking part in a Rota that covers a seven-day service during the hours of 8am and 8pm.

About us

The Virtual Ward programme is a truly whole system initiative.

This role will be employed by the acute trust with an honorary contract with our community provider GHC - we believe that this role is crucial to the interface between community and secondary care, and this role will build on the great partnership working already established between the 2 providers for the delivery of excellent care. We are fortunate that Gloucestershire has a single acute trust, and single community provider, which provides excellent conditions for a cross- system roles such as this. Our digital partner Doccla has a wide range of Virtual Ward experience from other systems - and we are leading the way with two way integration into our electronic patient records.

With this being a new service model, there is an exciting opportunity for the successful candidate to help shape and develop the service and team to meet the needs of patients at home. In return, the opportunity to work alongside and across providers is an exciting prospect for clinicians who really believe in integrated models of care. You will be supported by clinical leads, operational leads and transformation leads within both organisations and closely working with the ICB to develop and evaluate the model.

Gloucestershire Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust operates hospitals on our two main sites in Cheltenham and Gloucester, and were one of the largest NHS Trusts in the country.