Job responsibilities
Main Duties and Responsibilities
Patient Care
- Identify and manage as appropriate, treatment plans for patients at risk of developing a long-term condition
- Support patients to adopt health promotion strategies that encourage patients to live healthily and apply principles of self-care
- Promote and deliver evidence-based care for patients presenting with aural conditions
- Undertake routine tasks such as wound care and suture removal as required
Clinical
- Manage and assess risk within the areas of responsibility, ensuring adequate measures are in place to protect staff and patients
- Monitor work areas and practices to ensure they are safe and free from hazards and conform to health, safety and security legislation, policies, procedures and guidelines
- Ensure safe storage, rotation and disposal of vaccines and drugs is undertaken. Where appropriate, oversee the monitoring, stock control and documentation of controlled drug usage according to legal requirements
- Undertake mandatory and statutory training
- Apply infection control measures within the Practice according to local and national guidelines
- Adhere to policies that reduce environmental health risks, are culturally sensitive and increase access to health care for all
- Participate in the local implementation strategies that are aligned to the values and culture of general practice
Administration
Maintaining contemporaneous notes
Meetings attendance at clinical governance and Team meetings
Management
- Management of own rota
- Understand own role and scope in the organisation and identify how this may develop over time
- Work as an effective and responsible team member, supporting others and exploring the mechanisms to develop new ways of working
- Delegate clearly and appropriately, adopting the principles of safe practice and assessment of competence of those taking on delegated duties
- Ensure clear understanding and utilisation of referral mechanisms within the Practice
- Accept delegation from other nurses, prioritise own workload and ensure effective time-management strategies are embedded in own practice
- Work effectively with others to clearly define values, direction and policies impacting upon care delivery. Participate in team activities that create opportunities to improve patient care
- Participate in and support local projects as agreed with the practice management team
- Identify patterns of discrimination, take action to overcome this and promote diversity and quality of opportunity
- Enable others to promote equality and diversity in a non-discriminatory culture
- Support people who need assistance in exercising their rights
- Monitor and evaluate adherence to local chaperoning policies
- Act as a role model in good practice relating to equality and diversity
Accept the rights of individuals to choose their care providers, participate in care and refuse care.
Assist patients from marginalised groups to access quality care
Human Resources
Performance and Quality
- Recognise and work within own competence and professional code of conduct as regulated by the Nursing and Midwifery Council (NMC)
- Produce accurate, contemporaneous and complete records of patient consultation, consistent with legislation, policies and procedures
- Prioritise, organise and manage own workload in a manner that maintains and promotes quality
- Deliver care according to the NSF and the National Institute for Clinical Excellence (NICE) guidelines and evidence-based care
- Assess effectiveness of care delivery through self and peer review, clinical supervision, benchmarking and formal evaluation
- Participate in the maintenance of quality governance systems and processes across the organisation and its activities
- Utilise the audit cycle as a means of evaluating the quality of the work of self and the team, implementing improvements where required
- In partnership with other clinical teams, collaborate on improving the quality of health care, responding to local and national policies and initiatives as appropriate
- Evaluate the patients response to health care provision and the effectiveness of care
- Support and participate in shared learning across the Practice and wider organisation
- Participate in the management, review and identify learning from patient complaints, clinical incidents and near-miss events utilising a structured framework (eg significant event analysis)
- Participate in the performance monitoring review of the team, providing feedback as appropriate
- Understand and apply legal policy that supports the identification of vulnerable and abused children and adults, being aware of statutory child/vulnerable adult health procedure and local guidance
- Work within policies relating to domestic violence, vulnerable adults, substance abuse and addictive behaviour and refer as appropriate
Financial and Physical Resources
- Use technology as an aid to management in planning, implementation and monitoring, presenting and communicating information
- Review and process data using accurate Read codes about patients in order to ensure easy and accurate retrieval for monitoring and audit processes
- Manage information searches using the internet and local library databases, for example, the retrieval of relevant information for patients on their condition
- Understand own and others responsibility to the individual organisation regarding the Freedom of Information Act
- Collate, analyse and present clinical data and information to the team using appropriate charts and/or graphs to enhance care
Knowledge and Skills
Knowledge, Training and Experience
The post holder should demonstrate the ability to work independently
A willingness to undertake the diploma in General Practice Nursing is essential
The majority of the work will take place in the GP practice, although some home visits may be required to deliver care to housebound patients
The post holder will be the first point of contact for wound care in the surgery and therefore will need the knowledge and experience to assess acute and chronic wounds, create a management plan and evaluate the effectiveness of care and refer when appropriate to specialist services.
Womens health is a key part of the role therefore the post holder will need a willingness to train to carry out cervical cytology.
Supervision
- Act as mentor to students, assessing competence against set standards as requested and if appropriately qualified
- Disseminate learning and information gained to other team members in order to share good practice and inform others about current and future developments
- Assess own learning needs and undertake learning as appropriate
- Make effective use of learning opportunities within and outside the workplace, evaluating their effectiveness and feeding back relevant information
- Provide an educational role to patients, carers, families and colleagues in an environment that facilitates learning
Communication and Relationships
- Utilise and demonstrate sensitive communication styles to ensure patients are fully informed and consent to treatment
- Communicate with and support patients who are receiving bad news
- Communicate effectively with patients and carers, recognising the need for alternative methods of communication to overcome different levels of understanding, cultural background and preferred ways of communicating
- Utilise communication skills to support patients to adhere to prescribed treatment regimens
- Anticipate barriers to communication and take action to improve communication
- Maintain effective communication with individuals and groups within the Practice environment and external stakeholders
- Act as an advocate when representing the patients and colleagues viewpoints to others
