Junior Sister/Charge Nurse, Assessment Unit

Job description

Job responsibilities

Job Purpose:

To act as team leader for clinical staff.

To be responsible for clinical and non-clinical management of a ward area in the absence of the Senior Sister / Charge Nurse.

Key Duties:

Operational Responsibilities

Responsibilities for establishing and maintaining communication and relationship both internally and externally.

Establish and maintain effective communication and foster good working relationships with all multidisciplinary teams, both internal and external.

Provide and receive complex and / or sensitive information from patients and staff. For example, breaking bad news to patients, giving complex information about procedures and their outcomes, dealing with performance issues, holding staff meetings. Able to support and talk to distressed patients, visitors, and staff members.

Responsible for cascading information to ward staff and chairing staff meetings from which minutes are provided.

Make use of electronic internal / external mail and Internet systems as appropriate and necessary.

Deal effectively with comments, complaints, or incidents that affect staff and users of the ward in accordance with complaints, risk management, or human resources procedures.

Bring to the attention of the Senior Sister/Charge any factors which may adversely affect patient care or service provision.

Report all serious incidents to the appropriate Manager / Director within 24 hours; these include Never Events, serious falls, and grade 3 or 4 pressure ulcers.

Knowledge Skills & Experience (Also See Person Specification)

Be knowledgeable about the specific care requirements of patients who may be admitted to the area.

Be knowledgeable about current infection control procedures and policies and ensure all staff and visitors adhere to these at all times.

Be knowledgeable about the risks of infection and take responsibility for minimising cross infection within the clinical environment, assist in giving information and placing patients appropriately.

Be knowledgeable about all aspects of diabetes care.

Ensure that patient care is evidence based and that the patients journey is streamlined. Develop and implement patient pathways as directed..

Use a wide range of knowledge in determining at the time of assessment or admission, the most appropriate and safe patient pathway.

Identify, assess, and act accordingly at any point on the pathway including discharge when patients are no longer meeting the agreed appropriate and safe patient pathway.

Assess and act upon potential problems or issues to ensure a safe, effective environment for staff, patients, and visitors.

Identify, analyse, and act upon staff situations when there is conflict and / or deviation from Trust or local policies and procedures.

Identify, analyse, action and discuss with Senior Sister/ Charge Nurse as appropriate any change management issues that arise.

Planning and organisational skills

Assist in planning of duty rotas or alter planned rotas to ensure maximum service delivery, standards of patient care and human, and resource management. Use e-rostering as it becomes available.

Assist Senior Sister / Charge Nurse by utilising available resources to ensure safe and effective patient care e.g. periods of unplanned staff absence and / or equipment failure.

Be aware of Trust financial position and target objectives and ensure that ward area is as effective as possible in meeting these objectives.

Work with the multi-disciplinary team to streamline care and shorten patient length of stay.

Work with the multi-disciplinary team towards protocol led discharge for suitable patients.

Participate in Directorate / Departmental Sisters meetings.

Be involved in practice development and patient experience issues.

Responsibilities For Patient Care Therapy & Treatment

Oversee set patient care programmes in accordance with agreed policies, using expert nursing experience and skills.

Ensure that safe and effective nursing care is delivered, this to be in accordance with Trust policies and best practice guidelines, also Nursing & Midwifery Council (NMC) Codes of Practice and guidelines.

Act as a role model when carrying out and demonstrating demonstrating nursing care and procedures.

Ensure all staff carry out all appropriate general risk assessments within 24 hours of admission document and plan care accordingly e.g. manual handling, pressure risks, slips trips and falls, nutrition.

Ensure clinical staff assess the conditions of patients within the clinical area, ensuring that signs and symptoms are acted upon accordingly and in a timely fashion.

Ensure clinical area staff effectively manage the admission, transfer, and discharge of patients while incorporating other relevant Trust policies, for example Patients Property.

Ensure clinical area staff carry out appropriate nutritional risk assessments and follow current policies as indicated e.g. red tray policy, protected mealtimes.

Ensure clinical area staff participate in delivery of meals to patients and take responsibility for monitoring and recording dietary and fluid intake for group of patients.

Undertake nurse led services which will include autonomous nurse led discharge within defined protocols where appropriate.

Supervision of, and participation in the discharge planning system and process and deal with speciality or complex plans of care by liaison with community nursing services and other agencies.

Work with patients, carers / relatives, nursing and other healthcare professionals in secondary care to promote timely discharge, through appropriate discharge planning.

Provide telephone advice to patients and / or their carers as appropriate.

Provide expert advice and support to colleagues in the care and management of patients within speciality.

Actively contribute to the health and well being of patients by promoting health through a number of methods e.g. healthy eating, exercise and smoking cessation.

Ensure accurate, comprehensive contemporaneous and clear documentation of patients care.

Ensure that own and others written reports are in accordance with Trust policy and NMC guidelines

Be familiar with the policy for safe administration of prescribed therapies, including Medicines Management, Intravenous Therapy, Patient Group Directives, clinical guidelines for example Diabetes, Warfarin.

Demonstrate the ability to safely monitor and provide care for the patient once therapies have been administered.

Assist Senior Sister in ensuring audit documentation is kept up to date and collated as required. To include all the current audits for the KPI and CQuins such as timely nutrition assessments, pressure ulcer prevalence, numbers of slips, trips and fall etc.

Recommend any necessary policy changes following audit by discussion with Senior Sister / Charge Nurse and once agreed to ensure their implementation.

Assist Senior Sister / Charge Nurse in ensuring that staff participate in agreed research to benefit the departments development and patient care.

Support the Senior Sister / Charge Nurse by providing regular reports on standards of cleanliness, quality of food provided for patients and staff, essence of care standards.

Act as a senior and experienced nursing opinion in initiatives / policy decisions taking.

Vision and Values:

The Trust aims to provide local services for local people. It has developed its vision to reflect this commitment.

To continue to be the major provider of acute/specialist services for the people of Worcestershire (and wider) with a strong reputation for providing outstanding, high quality, reliable, accessible and integrated healthcare for local people

Driving this commitment are the Trust-wide signature behaviours:

Do what we say we will do

No Delays, every day

We listen, we learn, we lead

Work together, celebrate together

The full Job Description and Person Specification are uploaded in the supporting documentation section

Person Specification

Qualifications

Essential

• Registered pin number
• Teaching and Assessing qualification
• IV therapy trained
• Venepuncture and Cannulation trained
• Good clinical knowledge
• Good decision maker
• Able to use clinical judgement
• Awareness of Professional Development Reviews

Desirable

• Have at least 2 years experience working in an acute medicine
• Post registration qualification
• Awareness of sickness absence/monitoring
• Complaints handling using Essence of Care standards

UK Registration

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

Employer details

Employer name

Worcestershire Acute Hospitals NHS Trust

Address

The Alexandra Hospital

Woodrow Drive

Redditch

Worcestershire

B987UB

Employer's website

https://www.worcsacute.nhs.uk/ (Opens in a new tab)