Job responsibilities
Please see attached job description for full details.
Job Purpose:
To deliver advanced Occupational Therapy assessment and treatment
for medical patients within an acute ward setting.
To act as a source of
expertise to fellow clinicians, Trust managers, Healthcare Professionals and
other services internal and external to the Trust as required.
To manage, supervise and appraise staff and students.
To lead in training and
development of clinical practice and service.
To undertake clinical audits
and evaluation of evidence based practice, initiating/participating in research
within specialist area.
Key Duties:
To be a source of expertise, to identify, analyse, evaluate and
problem solve to enable the development and delivery of individualised
intervention and treatment programmes in a variety of settings.
To provide a consultative role with relatives and staff providing
advice, recommendations, support, training and instruction as identified.
To undertake all aspects of clinical duties as an autonomous
practitioner, managing and prioritising own caseload and time. Maintain
appropriate records and data inputting.
To provide leadership and management on a daily basis to the
therapy team within specialist area, including supervision, appraisal and
development.
To be involved in recruitment process for these staff.
To supervise, educate and assess the performance of students as
required. Work with universities to ensure the standard of practice and
teaching meets the requirements of the degree level qualification.
To
contribute to the education of students from other disciplines.
To deliver training to multi-disciplinary team members ensuring
competence in performing duties within their agreed scope of practice.
To undertake Evidence Based audit and research projects to further
own and teams clinical practice, making recommendations for changes. Leading
the implementation of specific changes to practice / contributing to service
protocols, with own specialist area.
To take a lead role within own speciality team, providing highly
specialist Occupational Therapy assessment and treatment of patients with
diverse presentations and complex physical and psychological conditions within
an acute and/or in community setting.
To use specialist skills to effectively manage caseload, work priorities
including service delivery, patient and professional demands.
To
be an active member of the relevant weekend rota and to have flexible working
to align with your designated clinical area.
The
job role includes working bank holidays and 7 day working as part of a roster
system as required. To be able to travel
and work in support of OT service including 7 day service and service
provision.
CLINICAL AND PROFESSIONAL
To be responsible for the planning and leadership of the occupational
therapy service (within own speciality) countywide, prioritising clinical needs
to provide an effective, efficient service.
Responsible for efficient and safe care management of medical
patients as part of the Multi-disciplinary teams, including risk assessments.
To be responsible for the development, implementation, and
delivery of Occupational Therapy including assessment, treatment planning and
carrying out treatment for own patient workload.
To monitor and advise on the clinical input of others and ensure
patients receive the highest level of care.
To develop and implement treatment programmes and initiate
discharge planning.
To be skilled in assessing and interpreting a range of
complex factors relating to the patients condition, including diagnosis and
prognosis. Highly specialised skills in the assessment and provision of
occupational therapy for patients who have complex medical conditions and
multiple co-morbidities.
To take responsibility for own professional actions, demonstrating
knowledge and skills to manage a caseload including complex and specialist
cases, evidencing high level problem solving, reasoning skills and independent
clinical judgement
To apply a high level of understanding of the effect of disability
and provide training and advice on lifestyles changes and adaptations to the
clients social and physical environment both within the hospital and the
community and the effect that this may have on family/carers.
To provide highly specialist Occupational Therapy that may not
only involve physical based assessments but also cognitive/perceptual/visual
and upper limb assessments and treatments particularly for those patients
recovering in medical high dependency unit and critical care. This would be supported through liaison and
joint working of the Neuro and complex care teams.
To demonstrate highly developed clinical reasoning skills to
undertake risk assessment for patients, carers and therapists within the
hospital and community settings which includes assessment of home environment,
both with and without the patient present, assessing both patient and carers
needs, identifying and recommending preparations required for discharge
planning and continuing care.
To establish and maintain a high standard of clinical expertise
and care for the patients under your management, and support junior staff to do
likewise.
To demonstrate the ability to assess patient understanding of
treatment proposals, gain valid informed consent and have the capacity to work
within a legal framework with patients who lack capacity to consent to
treatment.
To undertake highly specialist clinical programmes/interventions/treatments in line with identified evidence base and
national guidelines assessing the functional ability of the patient, including
those of a complex nature. This may involve using standardised or
non-standardised assessment tools.
To formulate accurate evaluations and deductions following
interpretation and analysis of clinical and non clinical facts in a wide range
of complex conditions, recommending the most appropriate interventions.
To evaluate treatments in order to measure progress, ensuring
clinical effectiveness and progressing the interventions to a satisfactory
closure, setting up reviews as appropriate and using outcome measures.
To educate and train patient/carer/support workers in safe use of
specialist equipment recommended e.g. use of hoist to move patient. This
involves handling and manoeuvring patients and equipment often in confined
spaces.
To use highly developed specialist knowledge to respond to urgent
requests from staff, patients and relatives to expedite rapid assessment and
discharge planning as required in an acute setting.
To work in a variety of clinical areas, both ward based and home
environments in the community where frequent and often highly unpleasant and
unexpected exposure to conditions may be encountered, which includes odours,
body fluids, human and animal faeces, insect and animal infestations and verbal
aggression.
To work on a variety of medical wards and undertake / demonstrate
interventions that are in line and appropriate to the evidence base and
national guidelines for this cohort of patients. These patients are medically
very unwell and require specialist intervention.
To manage and support other members of the team who may lack
experience within this area.
COMMUNICATION
Effectively communicate with all patients/ carers to maximise
rehabilitation potential and empower therapeutic relationships, decision making
in all aspects of Occupational therapy.
Excellent/clear verbal communication, including effective dealing
with complex/challenging situations at variety of organisational clinical meetings.
Effective/clear verbal communication at variety or
procedural/operational senior meetings, demonstrating / using negotiation and
persuasion skills, representing own speciality/team or wider Occupational
therapy department.
SERVICE DEVELOPMENT AND
DELIVERY
To play an active part in the future development of Therapy
services, in particular those within own speciality, county-wide, working
closely with the Therapy Service Manager and the Therapy Service Lead.
To evaluate/incorporate evidence based practice and ensure that
the service is in line with the National Service Frameworks/Standards.
To evaluate own/team work, by undertaking quality and performance
reviews, evidence based projects/audits and suggest implementations of
outcomes/recommendations to specialist colleagues and the Therapy Service Manager,
to ensure on-going monitoring of evidence/outcomes/monitoring the quality of
clinical provision within the team.
To
work closely with the Therapy Service Manager and Therapy Service Lead and
advise on recommendations for service developments/improvements.
LEADERSHIP
To support senior Occupational Therapists with managing the flow
of referrals, daily running of the team and attending various meetings.
To take active part in Therapy Senior Management Team, taking lead
on projects as assigned by the Therapy Service Manager.
To provide/deliver planned and spontaneous daily support and
assist with teams effective running including overall prioritisation and
allocation of caseload and non-clinical duties.
To act as role model, setting professional standards and manage
change to ensure achieving of best practice.
To work collaboratively with senior therapists and across external
agencies, making contribution towards changes of polices where required and
ensuring the changes are reflected in own clinical areas.
