Healthcare Assistant - Skin Team Mersey Care NHS Foundation Trust

An exciting opportunity has arisen within the Skin Care Service; we are seeking to appoint a highly enthusiastic and motivated individual to join the service as a Health Care Assistant. The successful applicant will work under the direction of the Skin Team leader/Clinical leads supporting the provision of high-quality holistic specialist nursing care to patients. The Health Care Assistant will work without direct supervision on occasions, providing care to patients in clinics across Liverpool and other community settings, as delegated by the Skin Team leader following appropriate training and supervision to ensure clinical competence and safe effective care.

Operational hours of the service are Monday to Friday 08:30-17:00. The postholder will work as part of the multidisciplinary team and will assist and support the clinical team(s). This may include working within the patient’s home environment and other clinical settings within the community. Ensure the delivery of the quality strategy within the designated area incorporating the establishment of systems and processes.

Key Responsibilities:

• Carry out a range of clinical procedures including leg ulcer, wound, and pressure ulcer care in a range of settings such as clinics, nursing homes, and patients' own homes with supervision from a trained member of staff.
• Undertake screening processes such as blood pressure, height, weight, urinalysis, and blood glucose measurements and collect specimens for laboratory investigations.
• Prepare and clear clinical settings.
• Assist with assessments, reassessments, and Doppler ultrasound.
• Maintain, order, and check the expiry date of stock for a variety of clinics.
• Undertake a range of personal care activities with patients such as removing soiled bandages and dressings, cleaning wounds, applying treatments and creams under the supervision of trained staff, ensuring personal dignity and privacy.
• Work within existing clinical guidelines, protocols, and infection control procedures.
• Offer advice to patients and carers on a range of health issues such as avoidance of pressure damage, prevention of recurrence of leg ulceration, and the importance of emollient treatments in dermatological conditions.
• Communicate factual and sensitive information to patients and carers from diverse backgrounds and/or with a variety of sensory deficits, ensuring strategies to overcome barriers to communication and understanding.
• Offer a level of psychological support to patients and carers in various situations and conditions such as psoriasis, eczema, and leg and pressure ulcers.
• Ensure contemporaneous record keeping both manual and computer-based that supports care and delivery by a range of professionals and provides an audit trail.
• Understand the process of cardio-pulmonary resuscitation, associated emergency procedures, and appropriate contacts in changing and complex situations.
• Be accountable for own clinical practice.
• Show analytic skills through interpretation of test results using policies/SOP and flow charts.
• Work unsupervised in well leg clinics, being aware of long-term conditions supporting patients to prevent leg ulcer recurrences.
• Work within well leg SOP and trust policies.
• Complete skills and competencies in leg ulcer management and Waterlow risk assessments.
• Be an advocate for patients while conducting well leg clinics and supporting the specialist nurses.
• Educate patients in well leg clinics to self-care in managing their hosiery and skin conditions.
• Identify the need for further referral, e.g., to treatment rooms or podiatry and district nursing teams following agreed processes.
• Develop patient/service user specific goals educating students, new staff, patients, and carers on treatment options.
• Enable individuals to develop necessary skills in health promotion and the ability to discuss and explain information leaflets provided, identifying risks and educating patients.
• Collaborate with colleagues to discuss patient issues within safety huddles, ensuring appropriate decisions have been made.
• Recognize the different health needs for individual patient assessments across localities.
• Undertake Waterlow risk assessments for pressure ulcer prevention following trust guidelines and well leg SOP.
• Liaise with GPs and other health professionals, writing to GPs to request prescriptions of recommended products.
• Apply compression bandaging in complex clinics and homeless clinics under supervision from trained nurses.
• Work on audits required by the organization, including data inputting of patient information, using spreadsheets for archiving within trust guidelines.
• Ensure relevant mandatory training is complete and up to date.
• Arrange clinic appointments for patients.
• Assist with entry of information on databases.
• Photocopy information as requested.
• Assist nurses in organizing their caseload through the discharge of patients.
• Undertake NVQ level three.
• Offer support to nurses and students from a variety of disciplines.
• Undertake teaching with patients and carers to improve concordance.

Health and Safety: All staff will be expected to take responsibility for their own health and wellbeing, safety, and security and assist in maintaining a healthy, safe, and secure working environment for everyone. They must not intentionally misuse or interfere with anything provided in the interests of health and safety, e.g., misuse of equipment. It is a legal requirement that all employees attend training provided by the employer and report to their manager without delay any accidents, incidents, and defects in equipment, place of work, or system of work which might endanger safety, health, or security of which he/she becomes aware.

This advert closes on Thursday 12 Dec 2024.