Physical Health Clinic Nurse - Clozapine | Mersey Care NHS Foundation Trust in Liverpool

Are you an experienced registered mental health or general nurse with a passion to improve the physical health of individuals with a mental illness? Are you looking to further develop your skills and progress or gain experience at a senior band? We are looking to recruit a senior nurse with a genuine interest in physical health working with service users within the mental health service. The successful candidate will be able to work in a fast-paced environment and be able to work autonomously and as part of a well-established team within the health and well-being clinics.

Previous experience of working with service users prescribed Clozapine is desirable and an ability to act as a senior clinician within the Clozapine clinics. The role will require the oversight and management of a very busy clinic, providing monitoring for the physical health of patients being prescribed Clozapine. There will also be times where you are required to carry out home visits, so access to transport to complete duties of the role is essential.

Extensive knowledge of running a clinic and managing Clozapine medication is required, alongside physical health monitoring such as ECGs, Venepuncture, Pochi Machine operation and escalation of physical health concerns to the appropriate teams. This is a very busy area and part of a growing team.

Mersey Care is one of the largest trusts providing physical health and mental health services in the North West, serving more than 1.4 million people across our region. We offer specialist inpatient and community services that support physical and mental health and specialist inpatient mental health, learning disability, addiction and brain injury services.

At the heart of all we do is our commitment to ‘perfect care’ – care that is safe, effective, positively experienced, timely, equitable and efficient. We support our staff to do the best job they can and work alongside service users, their families, and carers to design and develop future services together. We’re currently delivering a programme of organisational and service transformation to significantly improve the quality of the services we provide and safely reduce cost as we do so. Flexible working requests will be considered for all roles.

Key Responsibilities:

• To coordinate the physical care of service users titrated and maintained on Clozapine and Lithium.
• To manage blood results and actions needed when results are outside normal parameters by following policy and national guidance.
• To escalate concerns around service users' physical health to the MDT and primary care services if needed.
• To offer ECGs and Venepuncture to all service users using the clinic or referred into the clinic using the policy guidance.
• To ensure that the service user’s physical health care plan is developed to meet the assessed need of the individual and that other staff are delivering care as laid down in the care plan.
• To ensure that all relevant information regarding a service user’s care and treatment is documented accurately and legibly into the health record.
• To supervise and monitor the entries made by junior team members, through performance management and audit.
• To liaise with significant others when completing the assessment and treatment of care to the service user.
• To direct other staff in order to ensure delivery of a high standard of physical care to service users.
• To participate in setting physical health standards for care based on sound evidence-based and research findings.
• To participate in the systematic monitoring and evaluation of service users that you have responsibility for with guidance from a supervisor.
• To communicate with other members of the multi-disciplinary team to ensure the communication of any relevant information that has an impact on the service user’s physical care.
• To use verbal and non-verbal communication skills gained through training or experience to impart sensitive information.
• To check understanding of information where there are often barriers to effective communications due to distress, psychiatric symptoms or where English is not the first language.
• To provide and co-ordinate the provision of a range of therapeutic activities for service users and monitor their effectiveness.
• To take responsibility for the safe administration of medication to service users ensuring that the Trust policies and procedures and the Nursing & Midwifery Council's regulations are adhered to.
• To actively participate in service user reviews ensuring that service user needs are met and that the team has all the relevant information on which to base their clinical decisions.
• To develop care plans that enable service users to reach and maintain their optimum level of health and wellbeing.
• To react pro-actively in cases of service user physical health crisis and put in place immediate plans to resolve the situation with supervision and guidance as appropriate.
• To assist in the assessment and supervision of nursing and other students.
• To assess and monitor the physical health of service users, seeking advice and support from medical staff as appropriate.
• To actively participate in team meetings in order to positively influence team working and the development of research-based practice.
• To participate in the induction of new staff.
• To maintain safe custody of medicines, sharps and other clinical equipment.
• To manage own time and workload, prioritising work appropriately.