Advanced Clinical Practitioner in Birmingham

Welcome to FCMS!

The post will be based at Morecambe Urgent Treatment Centre (UTC). The centre delivers urgent care services between 8am - 8pm, 7 days a week, 365 days per year across the UTC and GP Out of Hours. Evening and weekend work will be required as part of this post.

Come and join our lively and vibrant team! Nestled in the lovely seaside town of Morecambe, we are an Urgent Care Centre with a highly skilled team, who deal with all ages, ranging from babies to the elderly. We are a high-performance team with complimentary talents and skills, who consistently show high levels of innovation, focusing on the best quality of care for our patients. We pride ourselves on an open and honest culture and show dedication towards peer support, maximizing individual strength and personality, valuing new ideas to help strengthen and celebrate what a great service we offer!

Main duties of the job:

• Exercise clinical expertise, judgment, discretion and decision making in clinical care within agreed parameters.
• Provide a high standard of care for patients presenting with undifferentiated and undiagnosed minor illness & injuries.
• Work collaboratively with Morecambe GP Out of Hours to provide Morecambe Urgent Care; as such there is an expectation to work across the services when required.
• Opportunities for development, with training and mentorship to extend clinical competencies (illness or injury) for the right candidate.

About us:

The ethos of FCMS as a social enterprise, health and wellbeing services provider is to be passionate in its drive to ensure that patients and callers remain the central focus of all that it does. Coupled with excellent and well-established clinical governance systems and extremely effective operational expertise, it has meant that the company has the ability to strategically visualise, develop, and implement award winning services. Over many years we have invested in our staff so that we have a core team of highly trained individuals who can manage the needs of our patients and callers. Our staff are able to significantly improve the service delivery and user experience due to their considerable experience and commitment to what they do.

We offer NHS Pension, Cycle to Work Scheme, Career Development Opportunities, Attendance Bonus, Staff Benefit Scheme, Free Tea & Coffee, Eye Care Contributions.

Job description:

• Work with and champion the unit in conjunction with Senior Managerial colleagues.
• Support the Management team and Clinical manager to ensure all service KPIs/Targets are met, and looking for improvement over and above the set commissioned targets.
• Ensure mandatory training is kept up to date and receive suitable training/CPD for ongoing development needs.
• Practice autonomously, as an independent practitioner, participating in the care of and undertaking assessment, diagnosis, treatment/referral and discharge of patients presenting with minor injury and illness within agreed parameters.
• Provide advanced clinical skills and advice demonstrating a sound understanding of the issues related to identification, assessment, diagnosis, treatment and management of a client group whilst working autonomously.
• Identify the need for and initiate and interpret relevant diagnostic investigations and results.
• To safely and competently undertake invasive and non-invasive procedures to establish a diagnosis.
• Be able to independently undertake telephone triage.
• Monitor and lead improvements to standards of care through supervision of practice, clinical audit, and evidence-based practice, teaching and supporting professional colleagues and the provision of skilled professional leadership.
• Contribute to the Clinical Governance agenda within the service by leading audit and research as part of the multi-disciplinary team within the area of expertise.
• Act in accordance with the NMC Code of Professional Conduct or other relevant professional body.
• Provide professional and clinical advice within the multi-disciplinary team.

Our key expectations are:

• Self-awareness
• Living authentically
• Adaptability - Being ready to adjust depending on the situation
• Openness - What you see is what you get
• Positivity with a real sense of being able to strive for the impossible
• Generosity of spirit - Everyday should be an opportunity to act with kindness
• Ability to have fun - Taking the role seriously, whilst being yourself

Our Why: To nurture an environment of inspiration, innovation and disruption so that people in our world receive exceptional healthcare for this generation, and the next.

Values: Our organisational culture is very important to us, so it is vital that the successful candidate lives and breathes complimentary values and behaviours. Our behaviours should be in line with our values which form part of our Company DNA:

• Fun: People rarely succeed unless they are having fun. Happiness is healthy!
• Awesome: We aren't here to be average, we're here to be awesome!
• Humble: We're here to make a difference to the lives of others, NOT to see how important we can become.
• Brave: We challenge the norm. We have the courage to get the difficult jobs done.
• Oompf: We have natural oompf! It's infectious!
• Go-getting: We are intuitive to changing needs and respond quickly which we do with energy, ideas, and positivity.

Clinical:

• Assess, treat, and advise patients presenting with health care needs.
• Provide supervision of the clinical team, assisting and developing their team and individuals.
• When required ensure patients are referred on to other members of the primary health care team or secondary care as necessary and support and guide others as required.
• Ensure all practice is safe and effective and remains within boundaries and scope of competence of individuals and to acknowledge limitations.
• Work at an advanced level of practice reflected under the 4 pillars of advanced practice of the HEE.
• Perform investigatory procedures, including assessing patients with minor injuries, request, and review x-rays, treat minor injuries /implement expanded roles in practice.
• In general, the post-holder will be expected to undertake all the duties and responsibilities associated with an expert practitioner working within Unscheduled Primary Care.
• Develop and maintain clinical/nursing policies, procedures, and protocols.
• Ensure any patient information is up-to-date and produced in appropriate formats.

Professional:

• Role model standards of care and behaviour through clinical practice.
• Act as a role model for standards of behaviour and professionalism, through commitment to the integration of policies and procedures within the role and workplace.
• Analyse relevant local and national policy, within their area of expertise and advise on the impact for service, leading the implementation of changes and evaluation of processes.
• Maintain professional registration and practice through CPD.
• Maintain a professional portfolio to demonstrate competency in line with NMC competency framework or other professional body.
• Prescribe medication in accordance with competency, professional guidelines and NICE / CKS guidelines.
• Maintain NMP competency and regularly review prescribing practice through CPD and reflective practice.
• Maintain their personal standards of conduct and behaviour consistent within FCMS, NMC guidelines or other professional body.
• Allocate, coordinate, monitor and assess own workload within an accepted time frame.
• Ensure appropriate use of resources to meet service needs.
• Recognise and act as an advocate for patients, carers, service, and the organisation.
• Carry out annual review of best practice/national standards and implement recommended changes.
• Promote workforce integrity (empower professional accountability within the clinical team, ensure accreditation process followed, complaints management, competency assessment, ensuring mandatory training requirements fulfilled, robust clinical induction).
• Maintain a sound knowledge of NHS policy and NICE guidance in relation to scheduled and unscheduled care.

Education and training:

• Identify own development needs in line with service requirements within a personal development plan.
• Develop and distribute educational leaflets in relevant formats, for patients relating to services and patient pathways.
• Ensure personal, peer support and clinical supervision needs are met.
• Contribute to clinical governance outcomes.
• Understand and apply professional and national guidelines on confidentiality.
• Be fully involved in the progress and development of clinicians and provide constructive and relevant feedback.
• Assist in the implementation of training and development in your locality.

Research and development:

• Evaluate clinical practice through audit of service and develop and manage strategies to address any shortfalls.
• Undertake audits as required by the service working with the clinical manager.
• Demonstrate knowledge of current research in all aspects of their work and advise others on the implementation of relevant research findings.
• Initiate and/or become involved in research projects in response to identified needs.
• Disseminate results/research/audit findings via local teams and/or national/international publications.
• Implement research findings appropriate to practice.
• Promote the shared objectives of the multidisciplinary team by working closely to ensure that best practice is achieved utilising both Clinical Benchmarking and Essence of Care processes.

Communication and working relationships:

• Communicates effectively with other team members.
• Communicates effectively with other healthcare professionals.
• Communicates effectively with patients and carers.
• Take all appropriate steps to minimise conflict.

Health and safety:

• Comply with safety policies, procedures and guidelines for self and others.
• Comply with the Organisations Business continuity Plan.
• Refrain from the wilful misuse or interference with equipment provided in the interest of Health and Safety.
• Report as soon as is practically possible any hazards or defects.
• Report as soon as practically possible accidents or untoward incidents and ensure appropriate incident reporting documentation is completed.
• Be actively involved as an appropriate departmental representative.
• Making effective use of training to maintain knowledge and skills.

Physical effort and working conditions:

• Be responsible to ensure all aspects of the Manual Handling guidelines are followed, providing appropriate risk assessments.
• Be responsible to manage clinical care following required Policies and Procedures pertaining to bodily fluids, infection control and COSHH regulations resulting in frequent exposure to highly unpleasant working conditions.
• Be responsible to manage challenging situations and people with some exposure to hazards, e.g. violent and abusive patients, child abuse, critically ill patients.
• Manage own time effectively within variable shift patterns.

Disability Confident Employer: As users of the disability confident scheme, we guarantee to interview all disabled applicants who meet the minimum criteria for the vacancy.

DBS: The role is subject to a DBS check which will require three forms of valid ID to be produced and verified. The onboarding process is also subject to an Occupational Health check, suitable professional references and eligibility to work in the UK (with the requirement to provide relevant documentation as evidence).

Please note that our roles are not being considered for sponsorship at this time.

Person Specification:

Teaching:

• Essential: Willing / able to attend appropriate training, Experience of training and development of staff, Commitment to own personal development.
• Desirable: Teaching Qualification.

Qualifications:

• Essential: Registered Practitioner (NMC / HCPC), First Contact Practitioner /Advanced Practice qualification or RCN Credentialled practitioner with experience dealing with both children and adults, Clinical experience within an unscheduled care setting, Non-medical prescribing qualification (V300).
• Desirable: Recognised training in minor injury / illness, consultation, and examination skills, IRMER / red dot x-ray interpretation course, Practice assessor certificate, Telephone triage qualification.

Personal Qualities:

• Essential: Must have a positive can-do attitude, Leadership qualities, Commitment to personal and professional development, Willing to work unsociable hours, Able to deal with difficult and sensitive situations with tact and diplomacy, Committed to service development, Adaptable to the changing needs of the service.

Experience:

• Essential: Minimum 5 years post registration experience and a passion for working in an integrated urgent care system and working with partner organisations, Experience of expert autonomous practice within an unscheduled care setting managing minor injuries of all ages, Health Promotion experience, Experience using clinical computer systems including Adastra, Understanding of current Urgent Health care issues and initiatives, Ability to work effectively under pressure, intense conditions and within time constraints, Understanding and awareness of CQC compliance and essential standards of quality and safety, Teaching experience/clinical supervision experience.
• Desirable: Experience of working within a community Urgent Care setting or ED or an appreciation of the nature of primary care prescribing, and strategies for improving prescribing practice, Innovative practice to deliver patient centred care, Evidence of clinical competence in a wide range of relevant clinical skills, local anaesthesia infiltration, suturing, x-ray interpretation, fracture management.

Teamwork, Management and Communication:

• Essential: Commitment to working with multiple organisations to manage patient flows, Commitment to multi-disciplinary team approach to care, Excellent oral, aural, and written communication skills, Excellent interpersonal skills and the ability to deal with difficult situations, The ability to demonstrate an understanding of the current issues affecting Primary Care services, Time management of work productivity, Ability to challenge the norm and get the best out of team members, Commitment to support, develop and manage change, Evidence of good organisational and leadership skills, Information governance understanding and awareness.
• Desirable: Evidence of leadership experience, Evidence of project management.

Disclosure and Barring Service Check: 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.

UK Registration: Applicants must have current UK professional registration.

The organisation is committed to safeguarding and promoting the welfare of children, young people and vulnerable adults and expects all staff to share this commitment. You will be expected to fulfil your mandatory safeguarding training at the level applicable to this role.

We reserve the right to close this vacancy early if we receive sufficient applications for the role. Therefore, if you are interested, please submit your application as early as possible.