Practice Nurse

Purpose: To assist the GPs and Practice Nurse team in the service delivery and management of patients.

Job summary: The post holder is responsible for the delivery of basic practice nursing services/care to the Practice population. Supported by senior Nurses within the Practice, they will deliver care within the boundaries of their role, focusing upon supporting patients to be healthy, monitoring of long-term conditions, health prevention and screening activities. They will work collaboratively with the General Practice team to meet the needs of patients, supporting the delivery of policy and procedures and providing nurse leadership/mentorship to Health Care Assistants as required.

Key responsibilities

• Assist in the assessment, planning, development, implementation, and evaluation of programmes of care within Practice Nursing for the Practice population; in order to promote health and well-being and prevent adverse effects on health and well-being.
• Identify, and manage as appropriate, treatment plans for patients at risk of developing a long-term condition.
• Support patients to adopt health promotion strategies that encourage patients to live healthily, and apply principles of self-care, e.g., BP checks, lifestyle advice, obesity weight management.
• Prioritise health problems and intervene appropriately to assist the patient in complex, urgent or emergency situations, including initiation of effective emergency care.
• Assess and care for patients presenting with a variety of acute and chronic wounds, evaluating the care plans, and changing the management as appropriate.
• Support and advise women requesting information relating to family planning needs, including depot injections and contraceptive advice/pill checks.
• Support and manage health needs of women presenting for cervical cytology consultations, performing cervical cytology examinations using liquid-based cytology technique.
• Give advice and administer injections for a variety of long-term conditions e.g., Zoladex, vitamin B12, erythropoietin, methotrexate.
• Implement and participate in vaccination and immunisation programmes for both adults and children.
• Advise, support and, where appropriate, administer vaccinations for patients travelling abroad and identify the need for malaria prophylaxis.
• Mentoring and supervision of Health Care Assistants in their general (phlebotomy, health screening) and extended roles (wound care, flu/pneumococcal immunisations, contraceptive pill checks).
• Follow evidence based best practice in relation to infection control and waste management.

Communication

• Utilise and demonstrate sensitive communication styles, to ensure patients are fully informed and consent to treatment, and patients dignity and confidentiality are maintained.
• Communicate with and support patients who are receiving bad news.
• Communicate effectively with patients and carers, recognising the need for alternative methods of communication to overcome different levels of understanding, cultural background, and preferred ways of communicating.
• Use communication skills to support patients to adhere to treatment regimens.
• Maintain effective communication with individuals and groups within the practice environment from all departments.
• Act as an advocate when representing the patients and colleagues viewpoints to others.

Delivering a quality service

• Recognise and work within own competence and professional code of conduct as regulated by the Nursing and Midwifery Council (NMC).
• Produce accurate, contemporaneous, and complete records of patient consultation, consistent with legislation, policies, and procedures.
• Prioritise, organise, and manage own workload in a manner that maintains and promotes quality.
• Deliver care according to the NSF and the National Institute for Clinical Excellence (NICE) guidelines and evidence-based care.
• Assess effectiveness of care delivery through self and peer review, benchmarking, and formal evaluation.
• Participate in the maintenance of quality governance systems and processes across the organisation and its activities.
• Use the audit cycle as a means of evaluating the quality of the work of self and the team, implementing improvements where required.
• In partnership with other clinical teams, collaborate on improving the quality of health care, responding to local and national policies and initiatives as appropriate.
• Evaluate the patients response to health care provision and the effectiveness of care.
• Support and participate in shared learning across the Practice and wider organisation.
• Participate in the management, review, and identify learning from patient complaints, clinical incidents and near-miss events utilising a structured framework.
• Participate in the performance monitoring review of the team, providing feedback as appropriate.
• Understand and apply legal policy that supports the identification of vulnerable and abused children and adults, being aware of statutory child/vulnerable adult health procedure and local guidance.
• Work within policies relating to domestic violence, vulnerable adults, substance abuse and addictive behaviour, and refer as appropriate.
• Understand own role, scope in the organisation, and identify how this may develop over time.
• Work as an effective and responsible team member, supporting others and exploring the mechanisms to develop new ways of working.
• Delegate clearly and appropriately, adopting the principles of safe practice and assessment of competence of those taking on delegated duties.
• Ensure clear understanding and utilisation of referral mechanisms within the Practice.
• Accept delegation from other Nurses, prioritise own workload and ensure effective time-management strategies are embedded in own practice.
• Work effectively with others to clearly define values, direction and policies impacting upon care delivery.
• Participate in team activities that create opportunities to improve patient care.
• Participate in and support local projects as agreed with the practice management team.

Management of risk

• Manage and assess risk within the areas of responsibility, ensuring adequate measures are in place to protect staff and patients.
• Monitor work areas and practices to ensure they are safe and free from hazards and conform to health, safety and security legislation, policies, procedures, and guidelines.
• Ensure safe storage, rotation and disposal of vaccines and drugs is undertaken.
• Undertake mandatory and statutory training.
• Apply infection control measures within the practice according to local and national guidelines.
• Apply policies that reduce environmental health risks, are culturally sensitive and increase access to health care for all.
• Participate in the local implementation strategies that are aligned to the values and culture of General Practice.
• Use technology as an aid to management in planning, implementation, and monitoring, presenting, and communicating information.
• Manage information searches using the internet and local library databases, for example, the retrieval of relevant information for patients on their condition.
• Understand own and others responsibility to the individual organisation regarding the Freedom of Information Act/Data Protection.

Learning and development

• Act as mentor to student Nurses and Health Care Assistants, assessing competence against set standards as requested and if appropriately qualified.
• Disseminate learning and information gained to other team members in order to share good practice and inform others about current and future developments.
• Assess own learning needs and undertake learning as appropriate.
• Make effective use of learning opportunities within and outside the workplace, evaluating their effectiveness and feeding back relevant information.
• Provide an educational role to patients, carers, families, and colleagues in an environment that facilitates learning.

Equality and diversity

• Identify patterns of discrimination, take action to overcome this, and promote diversity and quality of opportunity.
• Enable others to promote equality and diversity in a non-discriminatory culture.
• Support people who need assistance in exercising their rights.
• Monitor and evaluate adherence to local chaperoning policies.
• Act as a role model in good practice relating to equality and diversity.
• Accept the rights of individuals to choose their care providers participate in care and refuse care.
• Assist patients from marginalised groups to access quality care.

Person Specification

• Experience of working within a nursing team.
• Experience of working in primary care.
• Experience of working in a GP practice.

Qualifications

• This post is subject to the Rehabilitation of Offenders Act (Exceptions Order) 1975 and as such it will be necessary for a submission for Disclosure to be made to the Disclosure and Barring Service (formerly known as CRB) to check for any previous criminal convictions.