Autonomous GP — Primary Care & PCN Leader in England

Havering Crest PCN are looking to expand our team by seeking to employ a General Practitioner, to work alongside our practices and PCN staff. Our PCN staff currently includes Clinical Pharmacists, Advanced Clinical Practitioners, Dieticians, Social Prescribers, Physiotherapists, Care Coordinators, Nursing Associates and Pharmacy Technicians.

The post-holder will provide comprehensive primary care services in accordance with the practice rota. This includes conducting face-to-face and telephone consultations, managing acute and chronic presentations, and undertaking home or nursing home visits as required. As an autonomous clinician, you will be responsible for assessing patients with undifferentiated conditions, screening for disease risk factors, and developing collaborative care plans in line with practice protocols.

Key clinical administrative duties include:

• Prescription Management: Authorising repeat and acute prescriptions via computer-generated systems, adhering to the practice formulary and generic prescribing guidelines.
• Documentation & Results: Maintaining clear, contemporaneous medical records and processing correspondence, investigations, and pathology results in a timely manner.
• Professional Referrals: Identifying when to refer patients to secondary care or allied health professionals to ensure continuity of care.
• Audit & Quality: Contributing to data collection for clinical audits and providing patient-centred health education and counselling.

About us: Havering Crest PCN is a collaboration of GP practices working together to provide integrated, high-quality healthcare to our local population. Established in 2019 as part of the NHS Long Term Plan, we aim to bridge the gap between traditional GP services and community-based care, ensuring our patients have access to the right support at the right time.

By sharing resources and expertise, our member practices are able to offer a wider range of specialist services and personalised care that wouldn't be possible for a single surgery to provide alone.

Our Mission & Values

• Compassion: Approaching every patient with empathy and understanding.
• Collaboration: Working as a cohesive team to offer comprehensive solutions.
• Excellence: Committing to the highest quality of healthcare through continuous improvement.
• Inclusion: Ensuring our services are accessible and welcoming to all.

Job responsibilities:

Havering Health GP Federation is a working collaboration of 38 General Practices with a combined patient population of over 274,901 patients. Havering Primary Care Networks (PCNs) are groups of GP practices that have come together to work more closely together to improve the quality of care for patients in Havering.

To perform as an autonomous general practitioner working independently and with other health care professionals to assess, diagnose and treat the conditions of patients attending within a primary care setting. Provide expert professional advice to patients, carers and colleagues and ensure the maintenance of clinical excellence. To be involved in the provision of education and training to GP Registrars and other staff.

Primary Responsibilities:

• Clinical Practice: In accordance with the practice rota, as agreed, the post-holder will make him/her-self available to undertake a variety of duties including GP Face to Face consultations, telephone consultations and queries, visiting may include nursing home as well as patients home, checking and signing/authorising repeat prescriptions and dealing with queries, paperwork, correspondence and investigation results in a timely fashion.
• Making professional, autonomous decisions in relation to presenting problems, whether self-referred or referred from other health care workers within the organisation.
• Assessing the health care needs of patients with undifferentiated and undiagnosed problems.
• Screening patients for disease risk factors and early signs of illness.
• In consultation with patients and in line with current practice disease management protocols, developing care plans for health.
• Providing counselling and health education.
• Referring to other care providers as appropriate.
• Recording clear and contemporaneous consultation notes to agreed standards.
• Collecting data for audit purposes.
• Compiling and issuing computer-generated (or paper where necessary) acute and repeat prescriptions.
• Prescribing in accordance with the practice prescribing formulary (or generically) whenever this is clinically appropriate.
• The post-holder will be required to visit patients during surgery time in an emergency if clinically indicated.
• The post-holder will undertake fair share of home visiting sessions per week as allocated.

Communication:

• Utilise and demonstrate sensitive communication styles, to ensure patients are fully informed and consent to treatment.
• 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.

Delivering a quality service:

• Recognise and work within own competence and professional code of conduct as regulated by the GMC.
• Produce accurate, contemporaneous, and complete records of patient consultation, consistent with legislation, policies, and procedures.
• Assess effectiveness of care delivery through self and peer review, benchmarking, and formal evaluation.
• Evaluate patients response to health care provision and the effectiveness of care.
• Support and participate in shared learning across the practice and wider organisation.
• Use a structured framework (e.g. root-cause analysis) to manage, review and identify learning from patient complaints, clinical incidents, and near-miss events.

Leadership personal and people development:

• Act as a GP leader in the delivery of GP services ensuring that the needs of the patient are a priority.
• Take responsibility for own learning and performance including participating in clinical supervision and acting as a positive role model.
• Support staff development in order to maximise potential.
• Work with practice management to support development of sufficient staff of appropriate ability, quality and skill-mix to meet current and future service delivery.
• Contribute to the development of local guidelines, protocols and standards.

Team working:

• Understand own role and scope 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.
• Create clear referral mechanisms to meet patient need.

Management of Risk:

• Manage and assess risk within the areas of responsibility, ensuring adequate measures are in place to protect staff and patients.
• Support the team to ensure work areas and practices are safe and free from hazards and conform to health, safety and security legislation, policies, procedures and guidelines.
• Support the team to ensure appropriate supervision of safe storage, rotation and disposal of vaccines and drugs and documentation of controlled drug usage according to legal requirements where appropriate.

Managing Information:

• Use technology and appropriate software as an aid to management in planning, implementation and monitoring of care, presenting and communicating information.
• Review and process data using accurate Read codes in order to ensure easy and accurate information retrieval for monitoring and audit processes.
• Understand responsibility of self and others to the practice and primary care trust regarding the Freedom of Information Act.

Equity and Diversity:

• Identify patterns of discrimination and take action to overcome this and promote diversity and equality of opportunity.
• Enable others to promote equality and diversity in a non-discriminatory culture.
• Support people who need assistance in exercising their rights.
• Adhere to local chaperoning policies.
• Act as a role model in the observance of equality and diversity good practice.
• 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

Eligibility

• Essential: Full GMC registration, National Performers List registration (England), noting that confirmation on this list is adequate for DBS confirmation, Appropriate defence indemnity (MPS/MDU), Evidence of current validation, Evidence of last appraisal, Eligibility to practice in the UK independently.
• Desirable: Working with community development initiatives.

General Skill

• Essential: Excellent communication skills (written and oral), Strong IT skills, Clear, polite telephone manner, Competent in the use of Office and Outlook, EMIS user skills, Effective time management (planning and organising), Ability to work as a team member and autonomously, Excellent interpersonal skills, Problem solving and analytical skills, Ability to follow clinical policy and procedure.
• Desirable: Arden user skill, Experience with audit and able to lead audit programmes, Experience with clinical risk management.

Experience

• Essential: Experience of working in a primary care environment, Experience of continued professional development, Experience of QOF and clinical audit, Newly Qualified and Experienced General Practitioner.
• Desirable: Experience of medicines management, Experience of teaching undergraduate students.

Personal Qualities

• Essential: Polite and confident, Flexible and cooperative, Motivated, forward thinker, Problem solver with the ability to process information accurately and effectively, interpreting data as required, High levels of integrity and loyalty, Sensitive and empathetic in distressing situations, Ability to work under pressure / in stressful situations, Effectively able to communicate and understand the needs of the patient, Commitment to ongoing professional development, Effectively utilises resources, Punctual and committed to supporting the team effort.

Qualifications

• Essential: Qualified GP, MDRGP Vocational Training Certificate or equivalent, JCPTGP General Practitioner (Certificate of Completion of Training CCT), Understands the importance of evidence-based practice, Understanding of Extended brief interventions (NICE guidelines).
• Desirable: Knowledge of public health issues in the local area, Able to identify determinants on health in the area, Awareness of issues within the wider health arena.

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. For further information please see NHS Careers website.