Job responsibilities

Main duties of the job

The Practice Nurse will work autonomously and as part of the wider team to deliver high-quality care, including:

• Management of long-term conditions, including diabetes, asthma, COPD and Ischaemic Heart Disease
• Providing follow-up and continuity of care for patients
• Delivering health promotion, preventative care, and self-management support
• Supporting the practice in achieving QOF targets and enhanced services
• Contributing to service development and quality improvement initiatives
• Health screening, cervical cytology and childhood/adult immunizations
• Supporting the practice's commitment to personalised care planning, particularly for patients with long-term conditions.

About the Practice

Betts Avenue is a long-established GP Practice operating over two sites (Kenton and Benwell) in Newcastle upon Tyne.

We are a team of 2 GP Partners supported by 3 salaried GPs, 2 long-term Locum GPs, a Lead practice Nurse/Advanced Nurse Practitioner, 1 Advanced Care Practitioner, 2 Practice Nurses, 1 HCA as well as an experienced managerial and admin team.

We deliver a range of GMS services to a population of approximately 10,500 patients. We also have support from Care-Coordinators, Workflow Team, Pharmacy Hub, PCN pharmacists and Technicians, House Visiting team, our 2 own Practice Clinical Pharmacists, a Physiotherapist, 2 Mental Health co-ordinators for adults and a team of Social Link Workers.

We use SystmOne, Accurx and AnalyzeRx.

The GPs are also delivering weekly Ward Rounds in two large local Care Homes. We currently teach Year 5 Medical Students and Nursing Students.

Our practice is a member of the Inner West Primary Care Network, LMC, NGPS and North East North Cumbria ICB.

Job Purpose

To provide a high quality, professional Health Care service to the patient and staff team at the surgery. To be trained and competent to meet the duties set out below.

Job Summary

The practice nurse will work as part of the primary healthcare team providing General Medical Services to the practice patients.

Job Responsibilities:

• Assist in and perform routine tasks related to patient care as directed by senior nursing staff and GPs.

• Management of Chronic Diseases including COPD/Asthma/Diabetes/CVD and hold a recognised qualification in one or more of these areas and be willing to work towards a graduate certificate.

• Experience in Diabetes or Coronary Heart Disease.

• Cytology.

• Wound Care.

• Doppler.

• Travel Health.

• Removal of Sutures.

• ECGs.

• Routine immunisations/Childhood immunisations/Seasonal Immunizations.

• Chaperoning and assisting patients where appropriate who are being examined by another clinician.

• Requesting Pathology tests on ICE, for example blood tests, urine culture, swabs etc.

• Following agreed clinical protocols with referral to senior nurses or GPs as appropriate.

• Supporting junior nursing staff.

Other Tasks will include:

o Supporting junior nursing staff.

o House Calls for the delivery of Annual Reviews to the Frail Housebound patients.

o Maintain general tidiness and cleanliness of nurses and treatment rooms, including stocking and rotating items as required.

o Maintain and cleaning equipment used by the nurses and GPs.

o Participation in administrative systems in the Practice.

o Maintain accurate and contemporaneous records.

o Attend and participate in Practice meetings when required.

o Any other delegated duties appropriate to the post.

RESPONSIBILITIES EXPECTED OF ALL MEMBERS OF THE PRACTICE TEAM:

Confidentiality:

• In the course of seeking treatment, patients entrust us with, or allow us to gather, sensitive information in relation to their health and other matters. They do so in confidence and have the right to expect that staff will respect their privacy and act appropriately.

• In the performance of the duties outlined in this job description, the post-holder will have access to confidential information relating to patients and their carers, practice staff and other healthcare workers. They may also have access to information relating to the practice as a business organisation. All such information from any source is to be regarded as strictly confidential.

• Information relating to patients, carers, colleagues, other healthcare workers of the business of the practice may only be divulged to authorised persons in accordance with the practice policies and procedures relating to confidentiality and the protection of personal and sensitive data.

Health & Safety:

The post holder will assist in promoting and maintaining their own and others health, safety and security as defined in the practice Health & Safety Policy, the practice Health & Safety Handbook and the practice Infection Control policy and published procedures.

This will include:

• Using personal security systems within the workplace according to practice guidelines

• Identifying the risks involved in work activities and undertaking such activities in a way that manages those risks

• Making effective use of training to update knowledge and skills

• Using appropriate infection control procedures, maintaining work areas in a tidy and safe way and free from hazards

• Actively reporting of health & safety hazards and infection hazards immediately when recognised

• Keeping own work areas and general / patient areas clean, assisting the maintenance of general standards of cleanliness consistent with the scope of the post holders role.

• Undertaking periodic infection control training (minimum annually)

• Reporting potential risks identified

• Waste management, including collection, handling, segregation, container management, storage and collection

Equality and Diversity:

The post holder will support the equality, diversity and rights of patients, carers and colleagues, to include:-

o Acting in a way that recognises the importance of peoples rights, interpreting them in a way that is consistent with practice procedures, policies and current legislation

o Respecting the privacy, dignity, needs and beliefs of patients, carers and colleagues.

o Behaving in a manner which is welcoming to and of the individual, is non-judgemental and respects their circumstances, feelings, priorities and rights.

Personal / Professional Development

The post holder will participate in any training programme implemented by the practice as part of this employment, such training to include

o Participation in an annual individual performance review, including taking responsibility for maintaining a record of own personal and/or professional development

o Training responsibility for own development, learning, performance and demonstrating skills and activities to others who are undertaking similar work.

Quality:

The post holder will strive to maintain quality within the practice, and will

• Alert other team members to issues of quality and risk

• Assess own performance and take accountability for own actions, either directly or under supervision

• Contribute to the effectiveness of the team by reflecting on own and team activities and making suggestions on ways to improve and enhance the teams performance.

• Work effectively with individuals in other agencies to meet patients needs

• Effectively manage own time, workload and resources

Communication:

The post holder should recognise the importance of effective communication within the team and will strive to

• Communicate effectively with other team members

• Communicate effectively with patients and carers

• Recognise peoples needs for alternative methods of communication and respond accordingly

Contribution to the implementation of services:

The post holder will

• Apply practice policies, standards and guidance, agreed clinical software and protocols

• Discuss with other members of the team how the policies, standards and guidelines will affect own work

• Participate in audit where appropriate

Knowledge

Essential

• - Needs of patients with long-term conditions
• - Health promotion strategies
• - Aware of accountability of own role and other roles in a nurse-led service
• - Awareness of clinical governance issues in primary care
• -Patient group directives and associated policy

Desirable

• - Public health issues in the local area
• - Awareness of local and national health policy
• - Awareness of issues within the wider health economy

Skills

Essential

• - Clinical skills including immunisation and vaccination
• - Management of long-term conditions with support from lead nurses
• - Excellent interpersonal and teamworking skills
• - Ability to communicate complex messages to patients and families
• - Excellent time management skills/ability to prioritise and manage own time
• - Negotiation and conflict resolution/management skills
• - IT Skills

Desirable

• - Doppler
• - Contraceptive advice, sexual health screening and advice
• - Cervical Cytology
• - ECG'S

Qualifications

Essential

• - Registered Nurse (NMC)
• - UK Registration: Applicants must have current UK Professional registration. For further information please see NHS Careers Website.
• - Disclosure and Barring Service Check
• - Significant Primary care of relevant experience
• - Management and education of patients with chronic disease/long term conditions
• - Evidence of ongoing CPD and revalidation
• - Certified in immunisations and vaccinations
• - Cervical Smear Taker

Desirable

• - Relevant Nursing/Health Degree
• - Experience in managing diabetes in primary care
• - Mentor/Teaching
• - Independent and Supplementary Prescribing qualification or be willing to work towards this in the future should the Practice's needs require this.

Experience

Essential

• - Minimum 2 years post- registration experience
• - Management of Long-term conditions
• - Involvement in implementing and using protocols and clinical guidelines
• - Experience of audit

Desirable

• - At least 1 year recent primary or community nursing experience
• - Experience of working with the SystmOne clinical system
• - Knowledge of QOF, NICE guidance and national screening programmes

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 (opens in a new window).

Job responsibilities

ORGANISATIONAL RELATIONSHIPS

The post holder will be responsible to the GP Partnership.

DESCRIPTION OF ROLE

To provide General Medical Services, at both sites of Betts Avenue Medical Centre, for registered and temporary patients.

CONTEXT OF POST

The post holder will work closely together with the practice team to provide high quality primary care services to the practice population as required by the surgery in line with approved protocols and evidence based medical practice.

RESPONSIBILITIES SPECIFIC TO THIS POST

To manage a caseload, dealing with a wide range of health needs in a primary care setting whilst at all times ensuring the highest standards of care for all registered and temporary patients.

To undertake all duties and responsibilities associated with a GP working within primary care.

Duties and Responsibilities

Clinical:

• Provide a full range of medical services as defined in the core GMS contract and additional and enhanced services where appropriate.

• Undertake a variety of duties (as agreed) including surgery consultations and Care Home ward, telephone consultations and queries, eConsults, house calls, acute and repeat prescriptions and relevant queries, clinical admin work. Participate in the on-call Rota (one day per week.)

• Make professional, autonomous decisions in relation to presenting problems, whether self-referred or referred from other health care workers within the organisation.

• Assess the health care needs of patients with undifferentiated and undiagnosed problems.

• Screen patients for disease risk factors and early signs of illness.

• Develop care plans for health, in consultation with patients and in line with current practice disease management protocols.

• Provide counselling and health education.

• Refer patients to other care providers as appropriate.

• Record clear and contemporaneous consultation notes according to GMC standards.

• Collect data for audit purposes.

• Compile and issue computer-generated acute and repeat prescriptions (avoiding hand-written prescriptions whenever possible).

• Prescribe in accordance with the locally agreed prescribing formulary (or generically) whenever this is clinically appropriate.

• Ensure accurate and timely input of patient data onto the clinical system.

• Undertake all duties and responsibilities associated with a GP working within primary care including supervision of less experienced members of the team, nurses and other healthcare professionals.

• On call duties: The on-call GP cover both sites from 08:30 am to 18 pm and does not have any pre-booked surgeries. They will have a number of dedicated urgent/same day slots to use after Triage in other Clinicians' surgeries, including those of nurses and the ACP. The on-call GP is the first point of contact for all urgent queries and requests on the day. They triage and allocate all lunchtime house calls to all available practitioners (including themselves) and are responsible for Triage of any late house call requests that arrive after 12 noon (if they decide that patient needs a late visit, they can either refer to Urgent Response team or complete the visit themselves.)The on-call GP also needs to be able to move across the 2 sites if needed, for example if a nurse is working on their own without supervision on the branch surgery or another GP has become unwell. They also need to be prepared to offer patients an urgent F2F appointment with themselves if there is no other available slot in anyone else's surgery.

Managerial/Administration:

• Awareness of and compliance with all relevant practice Policies/Protocols, e.g. prescribing, confidentiality, data protection, health and safety, infection control.
• Application of practice policies, standards and guidance and discuss with other members of the team how the policies, standards and guidelines will affect own work.
• Commitment to life-long learning and audit to ensure evidence-based best practice.
• Contribute to evaluation/audit and clinical standard setting within the organisation.
• Contribute to the development of computer-based patient records.
• Contribute to the summarising of patient records and read-coding patient data.
• Attend training and events organised by the practice or other agencies, where appropriate.

Quality:

• At all times strive to maintain quality within the practice.
• Alert other team members to issues of quality and risk.
• Assess own performance and take accountability for own actions, either directly or under supervision.
• Contribute to the effectiveness of the team by reflecting on own and team activities and making suggestions on ways to improve and enhance the teams performance.
• Work effectively with individuals from other agencies to meet patients' needs (safeguarding, palliative care, social services, health visitors.)
• Effectively manage own time, workload and resources.
• Work within own limitations and asl for advice and help where appropriate.

Confidentiality:

• All patients have the right to expect that all practice staff will respect their privacy and act appropriately at all times.
• In the performance of duties, the post-holder may have access to confidential information relating to patients and their carers, practice staff and other healthcare workers. They may also have access to information relating to the practice as a business organisation. All such information from any source is to be regarded as strictly confidential.
• Information relating to patients, carers, colleagues, other healthcare workers or the business of the practice may only be divulged to authorised persons in accordance with the practice policies and procedures relating to confidentiality and the protection of personal and sensitive data.

Communication:

• The post-holder must strive to communicate effectively with other team members, patients, carers and recognise peoples needs for alternative methods of communication and respond accordingly.
• The post-holder must strive to attend practice clinical practice meetings whenever possible, respond promptly to practice notifications and emails that contain relevant and important updates, and contribute to clinical discussions.

Additional Responsibilities

Health & Safety:

The post-holder will promote and maintain their own and others health, safety and security as defined in the practice Health & Safety Policy including, but not limited to,

• Use of personal security systems within the workplace according to practice guidelines.
• Identifying the risks involved in work activities and undertake such activities in a way that manages those risks.
• Minimising the risk of infection to yourself, colleagues and patients, and in so doing, you must:
• Be familiar with and adhere to practice policies and guidance on infection prevention and control.
• Attend statutory education programmes in infection prevention and control.
• Include infection prevention and control as an integral part of your continuous personal/professional development.
• Take personal responsibility so far as is reasonably practicable, in helping ensure that effective prevention and control of health care acquired infections is embedded into everyday practice and applied consistently by you and your colleagues.
• Report potential risks identified.

Equality and Diversity:

The post-holder will support the equality, diversity and rights of patients, carers and colleagues.

• At all times act in a way that recognises the importance of peoples rights, interpreting them in a way that is consistent with practice procedures and policies, and current legislation.
• At all times respect the privacy, dignity, needs and beliefs of patients, carers and colleagues.
• Behave in a manner which is welcoming to and of the individual, is non-judgemental and respects their circumstances, feelings priorities and rights.

Personal/professional development:

• Participation in an annual individual performance review, including taking responsibility for maintaining a record of own personal and/or professional development
• Taking responsibility for own development, learning and performance and demonstrating skills and activities to others who are undertaking similar work.

Contribution to the implementation of services:

The post-holder will:

• Apply practice policies, standards and guidance.
• Be familiar with QoF, LES and DES and use appropriate/approved clinical systems and templates to record patient consultations. The practice uses SystmOne and expects all staff to regularly use AnalyzeRx in order to accurately code clinical data and respond to safety and quality alerts.
• Not use in their consultations any AI systems that have not been approved and agreed by the local ICB, LMC and the practice.
• Discuss with other members of the team how the policies, standards and guidelines will affect own work.
• Participate in audit and contribute to QIAs.
• Report and produce significant event analyses.
• Participate in clinical team meetings within or outside the practice.
• Develop a lead role and further responsibilities as they become more confident in their role.

Experience

Essential

• Experience of working in a primary care environment
• Experience of GP clinical IT system SystmOne, Arden's, AnalyzeRx and AccuRx.

Professional Attitude

Essential

• Ability to manage a varied primary care caseload and respond in a flexible way and competent manner to fluctuations in workload.
• Self-motivated and hardworking with the ability to stay calm under pressure.
• Empathetic, honest, caring and respectful.
• Ability to work as part of a multidisciplinary team but also be confident in their role.
• Enthusiastic, innovative and motivated.
• Open and reflective.

Qualifications

Essential

• Recognised qualifications for GP vocational training: MRCGP or equivalent
• On the GMC GP register with a certificate of completion of training (CCT)
• GMC Full Registration with a License to Practice
• Membership and appropriate cover of a recognised Defence Union
• Inclusion on a Performers' List
• Evidence of being up-to-date with Mandatory Training.
• Regular appraisal and revalidation in accordance with the Good Medical Practice Framework

Desirable

• Evidence of Clinical interests or specialist skills including Lead roles (Care Homes ward rounds, Palliative and EoL care in the community, involvement in Medical Education, GP training or F2 doctors training, Family Planning skills or other)

Skills and Abilities

Essential

• Excellent communication and interpersonal skills
• Evidence of professional vision and personal flexibility to be part of a developmental service which will seek to provide new services and ways of working

Desirable

• Car driver with full UK driving licence.

Knowledge and Understanding

Essential

• A good understanding of Clinical Governance and Quality issues
• Up to date knowledge of national and local initiative, guidance and regulations

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 (opens in a new window).