Job Description
Athena PCN
JOB DESCRIPTION
JOB TITLE: First Contact Physio
REPORTS TO: MSK Lead and Practice Business Partner
HOURS: 37.50 hours per week
Job Summary:
The First Contact Physio (FCP) will act autonomously within their professional scope of practice providing care for patients face to face, via telephone consultations, triage and home visits.
The post holder will operate within their own sphere of competence and limits of practice to provide expert professional clinical advice to patients, carers and colleagues, ensuring clinical safety and excellence.
The FCP will need to prioritise and triage the needs of patients accordingly, making any necessary referrals for investigations in the appropriate manner.
The post holder will use skills, knowledge and competencies as a qualified FCP in order to be responsible and accountable for managing patient caseloads for treatments, referral, admission and discharging patients, interpreting and acting on results as appropriate.
The FCP will deliver programmes of supported patient self-management, in ways that facilitate behavioural change, optimise individuals’ physical activity, mobility, fulfilment of personal goals and independence, and that minimise the need for pharmacological interventions.
Job responsibilities:
Clinical Practice
- Work as part of a multi-disciplinary team to deliver safe and high quality care.
- Take professional responsibility as a first-contact physiotherapist, with high-level decision-making and clinical reasoning skills, to triage, assess, diagnose and treat patients, making referrals as necessary to other members of the primary and secondary care teams as appropriate.
- Manage a complex caseload (including patients with long-term conditions, co-morbidities and multi-factorial needs).
- Accountable for decisions and actions via HCPC registration, supported by a professional culture of peer networking/review and engagement in evidence-based practice.
- Carry out clinical practice using expert clinical skills, critical judgements and knowledge to deliver appropriate and safe care.
- Delivery of care in line with NICE guidelines and evidence-based care
- Co-ordinate the planning and delivery of care ensuring patients and carers/relatives are involved.
- Reviewing medication that is appropriate to patient needs and in accordance with latest evidence-based practice, national and practice protocols and within the scope of qualified practice.
- Diagnose and manage acute and chronic conditions, including drug and non-drug based treatment methods into a management plan.
- Request diagnostic investigations and interpret within agreed protocols e.g. x-ray, blood tests, scans, etc.
- Assess, diagnose and treat patients in practice premises or their own home who require medical attention and/or refer to appropriate agency.
- Uses a range of clinical skills which includes non-medical independent prescribing, joint soft tissue injections, joint aspirations.
Care Management
- Communicate confidential and sensitive information to patients, relatives and carers in relation to their condition.
- Contribute to local and national practice targets clinical remit e.g. QOF, prescribing incentive scheme, National benchmarking.
- To monitor and meet care outcomes against standards and recommend or initiate changes as necessary.
Health Improvement/Promotion
- Innovation in practice to meet ongoing demands on the practice’s delivery of care.
- Improve health outcomes for patients by introducing new developments, and can demonstrate them as reports and presentations where appropriate.
- Supports practitioners in reporting the practice population to promote health improvement and disease prevention.
- Works with MDT to develop more effective and streamlined clinical pathways and services
- Involve patients in decision-making and supporting adherence as per NICE guidance
- Lead primary care activity, with a strong emphasis on prevention and early intervention, including through the delivery of public health advice and screening (eg relating to physical activity, weight management and smoking cessation)
Administration and professional responsibilities
- Produce accurate, contemporaneous and complete records of patient consultation, consistent with legislation, policies and procedures, and ensure that appropriate Read codes and templates are used effectively
- Maintain all professional registrations and provide evidence to the practice when required
- Participate in the administrative and professional responsibilities of the practice team, including contributing to leadership, service evaluation/improvement and research activity
- Provides learning opportunities for the whole multi-professional team within primary care
- Ensure accurate completion of all necessary documentation associated with patient health care and registration with the practice
- Attend and participate in practice meetings as required
Training and personal development
- Maintain up to date skills and knowledge, maintaining awareness of professional issues at an advanced level.
- Training needs will be monitored by yearly appraisal and will be in accordance with practice requirements. Personal development will be encouraged and supported by the practice.
- Assess effectiveness of care delivery through self-reflection and peer review, as well as benchmarking and formal evaluation.
- Contribute to the identification and assessment of learning needs of staff and other professionals and assist in planning effective programmes of education.
- Participate in the education and training of students of all disciplines and all members of the practice staff where appropriate, including mentoring.
- Place suggestions to the Practice Manager to support in house training.
- Develop and maintain a Personal Learning Plan.
- Regularly participate in clinical supervision.
Confidentiality:
In the course of seeking treatment, patients entrust practice staff with, or allow us to gather, sensitive information in relation to their health and other matters.
- Comply with Legislation with regards to data protection act and ensure confidentiality is maintained at all times.
- The post-holder must regard all information relating to patients and their carers, practice staff and other healthcare workers (as well as information relating to the practice as a business organisation) as strictly confidential
- Information relating to patients, carers, colleagues, other healthcare workers or the business of the practice may only be divulged to authorised persons in accordance with the practice policies and procedures relating to confidentiality, data protection legislation and the protection of personal and sensitive data, as well as other related healthcare legislation (e.g. the NHS Confidentiality Code of Practice)
Health & Safety:
The post-holder will comply with practice policies, procedures and clinical guidelines for self and others. This includes (but not limited to):
- Identifying, reporting, and correcting health and safety hazards and infection hazards immediately when recognised
- Awareness of national standards of infection control and cleanliness, as well as adhering to infection control and clinically based patient care protocols and implementing them across the practice.
- Identifying the risks involved in work activities, raising them with appropriate management and managing those risks across clinical and patient processes.
- Safe management of sharps procedures, including training, use, storage and disposal
- Keeping own work areas and general / patient areas generally clean, sterile, assuming responsibility in the maintenance of general standards of cleanliness across the business in consultation (where appropriate) with other managers
- Demonstrate due regard for safeguarding and promoting the welfare of children.
Equality and Diversity:
The post-holder will support the equality, diversity and rights of patients, carers and colleagues, to include:
- Acting in a way that recognises the importance of people’s rights, interpreting them in a way that is consistent with practice procedures and policies, and current legislation
- Respecting the privacy, dignity, needs and beliefs of patients, carers and colleagues
- Identify patterns of discrimination and take action to overcome this and promote diversity and equality of opportunity.
- Behaving in a manner that is welcoming to and of the individual, is non-judgmental and respects their circumstances, feelings priorities and rights.
- Support people who need assistance in exercising their rights.
Quality:
The post-holder will strive to maintain quality within the practice, and will:
- Alert other team members to issues of quality and risk
- Assess own performance and take accountability for own actions, either directly or under supervision
- Contribute to the effectiveness of the team by reflecting on own and team activities and making suggestions on ways to improve and enhance the team’s performance
- Work effectively with individuals in other agencies to meet patient’s needs
- Effectively manage own time, workload and resources
Communication:
The post-holder should recognise the importance of effective communication within the team and will strive to:
- Communicate effectively with other team members
- Communicate effectively with patients and carers
- Recognise people’s needs for alternative methods of communication and respond accordingly
- Ensure awareness of sources of support and guidance (e.g. PALS) and provide information in an acceptable format to all patients, recognising any difficulties and referring where appropriate.
Contribution to the implementation of services:
The post-holder will:
- Apply practice policies, standards and guidance
- Discuss with other members of the team how the policies, standards and guidelines will affect own work
- Participate in audit where appropriate.
This job plan may be subject to change in agreement between the practice and the post-holder.
Job Type: Full-time
Salary: £48,000.00-£60,000.00 per year
Benefits:
- Company pension
- Free parking
Schedule:
Ability to commute/relocate:
- Linton, ME17 4NU: reliably commute or plan to relocate before starting work (required)
Licence/Certification:
- HCPC certificate (required)
Work Location: In person
Application deadline: 18/06/2023
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