Cardiology Practitioner | Medway Community Healthcare CIC

Are you an experienced, dynamic, progressive nurse with experience and passion for looking after complex patients with heart failure? Then you should consider joining our friendly team of heart failure and cardiology clinicians. You would be working within a very experienced heart failure team and autonomously managing a caseload of heart failure patients seeing them in clinic and their homes. The main aim of your role is to optimise medications to improve prognosis, control symptoms and prevent hospital admission for patients with heart failure with reduced ejection fraction. You will be expected to have excellent communication skills and be able to work closely and take a lead role within the cardiology team as well as work effectively with the wider multidisciplinary team.

Job Responsibilities

• Use highly developed specialist knowledge to assess, plan, implement and evaluate individualised care for patients with complex cardiac conditions.
• Closely monitor patient’s condition, identify any changes and using own judgment to act appropriately in a timely fashion to ensure optimum patient care.
• Prescribe and review medication and recommend changes in conjunction with consultant cardiologists and guidelines depending on individual needs.
• Demonstrate clinical decision-making skills in referring patients for further tests or discharge to GP.
• Act as role model/mentor to junior staff and manage staff when required; the candidate will deputise for the clinical lead when required.

Benefits and Opportunities

• This is your chance to join a progressive and innovative service in a social enterprise that is patient and staff focused – you’ll even have the opportunity to become an MCH shareholder.
• We encourage staff to get involved in exploring new ways of working and service development.
• We’ll provide well established, in-service training, one-to-one supervision, and appraisals with regular support.
• You’ll be able to develop your skills in a friendly and supportive team.

Job Purpose

• To support the diagnosis of suspected heart failure patients, arrhythmia patients, and/or cardiac rehab patients.
• Take a lead nurse role within the community cardiology team.
• To case-manage a caseload of patients, optimising their care and treatment and reducing unnecessary hospital admissions.
• The post holder will utilise advanced nursing practice, skills and knowledge to enable the ordering of investigations, interpretation of findings, nurse diagnosis, as well as initiation and/or changing of treatments in any part of the patient journey.
• To work within national and local Cardiology clinical guidelines and formularies.
• To provide care in settings suitable for patients including clinics, by telephone and home visits.
• To improve the prescribing rates of evidence-based medicines in heart failure and atrial fibrillation patients.

Communication and Relationship Skills

• Demonstrates highly developed communication skills when working with patients and carers and shows the ability to provide and receive highly complex, sensitive information regarding patient’s medical condition and test results.
• Shows ability to take into consideration any barriers to understanding and employs appropriate methods to ensure effective communication.
• Provides leadership, management and appraisal to allocated staff.
• Provides induction and training of new staff.
• Promotes the work of the specialist cardiac nurses in formal presentations.
• Meets with line manager on a regular basis to discuss current and future work.
• Provides emotional support to patients and carers.
• Skilled at motivating patients to make lifestyle changes.
• Communicates effectively with other medical, nursing and Allied Health professionals and external agencies such as patient service user forums.
• Communicates effectively both in writing and verbally.
• Ability to liaise effectively with senior medical colleagues to ensure best care for patients.
• Effectively communicates service related information to team colleagues and senior management through team meetings and one-to-one meetings.
• Works as part of a multidisciplinary team – communicating management plans to primary care colleagues and providing appropriate advice as required.

Analytical and Judgement Skills

• Uses highly developed specialist knowledge to assess, plan, implement and evaluate individualised care for patients with complex cardiac conditions.
• Closely monitor patient’s condition, identify any changes and using own judgement to act appropriately in a timely fashion to ensure optimum patient care.
• Requests, performs and interprets appropriate cardiac investigations.
• Prescribe and review medication and recommend changes in conjunction with consultant cardiologists and guidelines depending on individual needs.
• Demonstrate clinical decision-making skills in referring patients for further tests or discharge to GP.
• Analyses the cardiac nursing service effectiveness through audit both nationally and locally.

Planning and Organisational Skills

• Maintains agreed activity levels of service.
• Excellent time management skills and the ability to prioritise work.
• Plans and organises own caseload and cover from within the team while on annual leave.
• Refers patients to other members of the multidisciplinary team as appropriate.
• Identifies areas of development nationally within cardiac nursing to ensure that provision remains current and advances in a pioneering fashion (in line with NICE, NSF frameworks etc).
• Organise daily work including all face-to-face contact and to ensure that patients are fully monitored; test results are viewed and acted upon, notes and letters written in a timely fashion.
• As part of the team demonstrate flexibility in personal time planning in order to be able to offer face-to-face visits or telephone contacts at short notice when required in order to support patients and colleagues.
• Plan, organise and deliver education programmes for all levels of staff relating to cardiology.