Practice Nurse - Bruton Surgery & Wincanton Health Centre, Somerset

Symphony Healthcare Services have a vacancy for a Practice Nurse, to work across both Bruton Surgery in Bruton and Wincanton Health Centre in Wincanton, Somerset. Both are part of the Rural Primary Care Network of practices.

We pride ourselves on providing excellent employee benefits, including competitive pay, professional development opportunities, and a supportive work environment. If you are passionate about patient care and eager to become a valued member of our healthcare team, we would love to hear from you.

This is a permanent, part-time post of 20 hours per week. Days and hours of work will be discussed at interview stage. The rate of pay is £17.40 - £22.17 per hour (starting salary will be based on previous experience and qualifications), with the option to join the NHS or NEST pension scheme, plus other great employee benefits.

You will be part of a nursing team responsible for ensuring that the practice provides optimum care relevant to the practice population, either in practice or the home environment. You will also work collaboratively with the whole general practice team, to meet the needs of patients, supporting the delivery of policy and procedures, and providing nurse leadership as required.

In addition, you will provide nursing clinics including vaccinations and immunisations, dressings, and chronic disease management preferably for Diabetes and/or respiratory conditions such as asthma & COPD.

Bruton Surgery is a small yet friendly practice while Wincanton Health Centre is our neighbouring practice with a larger population. Both practices pride themselves on providing excellent care to our patients and supporting the wellbeing of our staff.

The successful candidate will be kind, reflective and self-aware, and will enjoy working with a wide range of people. They will need to have good communication and negotiation skills and be proactive with a flexible attitude, keen to work as part of a team and committed to developing themselves in this skilled role.

For further details about the role, please contact Melissa Kelly, Nurse Manager.

About us: Symphony Healthcare Services (Symphony) was established in 2016 as part of the award-winning Symphony Programme Vanguard, developing new models of care. We now support 20 practices across Somerset providing care for 100,000 patients.

Symphony has developed a model where each practice is encouraged to operate autonomously, but as a subsidiary of NHS Somerset Foundation Trust (SFT), and with the backing and economies of scale from a central support team (particularly for HR, finance, corporate and strategic management matters).

Our vision is to ensure that primary care is sustainable for patients and practices in Somerset, and we aim to be a national exemplar for primary care provision. We work closely with our practice teams to support, develop and transform patient care and working practices with innovation and technology at our core.

Symphony welcomes applications from people of all backgrounds and underrepresented groups. When undertaking recruitment and selection for our services, Symphony are committed to equality of opportunity for all.

Symphony offers a fantastic range of employee benefits, along with flexible working from day of employment and an agile approach to home/office-based working.

Job responsibilities:

• Assist the whole practice team to help deliver effective implementation of management of patients and their needs.
• Managing the nursing care of patients with chronic disease, employing recall systems suitable to the practice needs.
• Contribute to the development of policies/protocols/guidelines within the practice.
• Aid the practice team with implementation of new initiatives in the delivery of chronic disease management services.
• Encourage the development of integrated services within Primary Care to include integrated practice based teams and multidisciplinary working.
• Recognise the opportunities for working in partnership with the Primary Health care team.
• Assess, plan, develop, implement and evaluate programmes to promote health and well-being, and prevent adverse effects on health and well-being.
• Implement and evaluate individual treatment plans for patients with a known long-term condition.
• Prioritise health problems and intervene appropriately to assist the patient in complex, urgent or emergency situations, including initiation of effective emergency care.
• Deliver opportunistic health promotion using opportunities such as new-patient medicals.
• Provide information and advice on prescribed or over-the-counter medication on medication regimens, side effects and interactions.

Qualifications:

• Willingness to learn and acquire new skills.
• Insight and understanding of current issues in nursing and the NHS.
• Post-registration study in topics allied to general practice.

Knowledge and Skills:

• Good interpersonal skills, both verbal and written.
• Evidence of problem-solving and decision making skills.
• Demonstrates motivation, reliability and commitment to team working.
• Knowledge of needs of patients with long-term conditions.
• Aware of accountability of own role and other roles in a nurse led service.
• Knowledge of health promotion strategies.
• Awareness of clinical governance issues in primary care.
• Knowledge of patient group directions and associated policy.

Experience:

• Evidence of appropriate knowledge base.
• Interest and basic knowledge in long-term conditions.
• Demonstrate an understanding of audit.
• Experience of working in a General Practice setting.
• Experience of using a GP Clinical System (EMIS preferred).
• Basic/advanced certificate of life support.
• Awareness of the national service framework guidelines.
• Understanding of health and safety issues.

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.