Job Description
About Us:
The Confederation, Hillingdon CIC works with general practice and other healthcare providers in Hillingdon to deliver high quality clinical services to patients. Our aim is to improve care for patients by working collaboratively across primary care and our partners as part of the Integrated Care Partnership. The Confederation team also work to develop and support individual GP practices, PCNs and Neighbourhoods and their changing needs. We are of the NHS but independent, innovative and transformational.
General capacity across primary care is being expanded rapidly. The Confederation is determined to develop as an attractive place to work that provides rewarding roles and opportunities to grow in order to attract and retain great staff that in turn provides the highest quality care.
Our Values:
Job Summary:
A fantastic opportunity has arisen for suitably qualified Physician Associate to join The Confederation, CIC Hillingdon. The post holder will join a very varied and flexible role, dealing with acute & minor illness treatment and chronic disease management.
If you are keen to learn and develop your role as a Physician Associate within our PCN, we would love to hear from you.
You must be registered on the PAMVR, and excited by the prospect of working with patients of all age groups, in the busy and challenging environment of General Practice.
You will be joining a very forward thinking and innovative PCN who utilises to the full, the skills and experience of our team members. With appropriate training and supervision, you will work autonomously and be responsible for your own patient caseload.
Primary Responsibilities:
Role Summary:
In this exciting and challenging role, you will:
- Provide primary support to general practice by assessing, managing and treating patients of all ages with a variety of acute, undifferentiated and chronic conditions.
- Be confident, in not only dealing with patients face to face, but also in assessing and treating them via telephone/video consultations.
- Be responsible for making referrals to specialist services, review and act on laboratory and Imaging results.
- Carry out home visits or visit nursing and residential homes.
- Offer specialised clinics, following appropriate training, including (but not exclusively) family planning, baby checks, COPD, asthma, and diabetes.
- Make a significant contribution towards each practice meeting their clinical targets and objectives.
- Work very closely with Multidisciplinary Teams in the Borough and the Primary Care teams within each Practice.
- Assist in the teaching and supervision of undergraduate medical students.
Job responsibilities
The following are the core responsibilities of the Physician Associate role. There may be, on occasion, a requirement to carry out other tasks; this will be dependent upon factors such as workload and staffing levels. The Physician Associate will work within their scope of clinical practice and:
- Work clinical sessions consisting of either telephone triage, face to face, video or e-Consulting appointments or all four.
- Participate in all treatment and preventative healthcare services in the Practice as delegated and agreed by the supervising GP(s).
- Provide direct clinical care to patients using established clinical guidelines.
- Perform specialised diagnostic physical exams and treatment procedures.
- Instruct and educate patients in preventative health care.
- Be confident in explaining to patients their clinical management plan and be able to modify that plan according to their age and co-morbidities.
- Identify, signpost or refer patients at risk of developing long-term conditions, preventing adverse effects on the patients health.
- Give confidence to the supervising GP in your use of your clinical findings to justify the differential diagnosis.
- Organise onward investigation, treatment and referral where appropriate.
- Ensure continuity of care, arranging follow-up consultations or reviews as necessary.
- Provide appropriate preventative health care and advice.
- Attend regular practice clinical meetings.
- Support the clinical team with all safeguarding matters, in accordance with local and national policies.
- Under supervision of the GPs in the practice, make professional, autonomous decisions in relation to presenting problems, whether self-referred or referred from other health care workers within the organisation.
- Record clear and contemporaneous IT based consultation notes to agreed standards.
- Review and act on Laboratory results and Clinical communication from Hospitals and other providers.
- Develop consultation skills to enable shared patient and practitioner decision-making.
- Recognise assess and refer where appropriate patients presenting with mental health problems.
- Understand practice and local policies for substance abuse and addictive behaviour, referring patients appropriately.
- Be able to justify choice of medication, and support patients in the use of their prescribed medication (within own scope of practice).
- Be able to understand the impact of comorbidities and other medications and poly-pharmacy.
- Deliver integrated patient centred-care through appropriate working with the wider primary care multi-disciplinary team and social care networks.
- Conduct home visits and Care Home visits (following adequate training).
- Act on alerts (e.g. QOF, local enhanced services etc.) and reminders during a consultation.
- Assist the practices in achieving their clinical targets and objectives in QOF, Local enhanced services etc.
Collaborative Working Relationships:
- Foster and maintain strong links with all services across the PCN and neighbouring networks.
- Explores the potential for collaborative working and takes opportunities to initiate and sustain such relationships.
- Demonstrates use of appropriate communication to gain the co-operation of relevant stakeholders (including patients, senior and peer colleagues, and other professionals, other NHS/private organisations e.g. CCGs).
- Can recognise personal limitations and refer to more appropriate colleague(s) when necessary.
Liaises with other stakeholders as needed for the collective benefit of patients including but not limited to:
- Patients and their representatives.
- GP, nurses and other practice staff.
- Other healthcare professionals including community pharmacists, pharmacy technicians, social prescribers, first contact physiotherapists, physicians associate and paramedics.
- Community pharmacists and support staff
- Other members of the medicines management (MM) team including pharmacists, technicians and dieticians
- Locality/GP prescribing lead
- Community nurses and other allied health professionals
- Hospital staff with responsibilities for prescribing and medicines optimization
- Community nurses and other allied health professionals
Professional Development:
- Work with your line manager to undertake continual personal and professional development, taking an active part in reviewing and developing the role and responsibilities.
- Involved in regular one to one meetings with line manager to discuss targets and outcomes achieved.
- Adhere to organisational policies and procedures, including confidentiality, safeguarding, lone working, information governance, and health and safety.
- Review yearly progress and develop clear plans to achieve results within priorities set by others.
Knowledge, Skills and Experience Required:
- Recognises priorities when problem-solving and identifies deviations from normal pattern and can refer to seniors when appropriate.
- Able to follow legal, ethical, professional and organisational policies/procedures and codes of conduct.
Education, Training and Development:
- Understands and demonstrates the characteristics of a role model to members in the team and/or service.
- Demonstrates self-development through continuous professional development activity.
Leadership:
- Demonstrate understanding of, and contributes to, the workplace vision.
- Demonstrates ability to improve quality within limitations of service.
- Reviews yearly progress and develops clear plans to achieve results within priorities set by others.
- Demonstrate ability to motivate self to achieve goals.
- Promotes diversity and equality in people management techniques and leads by example.
Health and Safety/Risk Management:
- The post-holder must comply at all times with all local Health and Safety policies, in particular by following agreed safe working procedures and reporting incidents using the organisations Incident Reporting System.
- The post-holder will comply with the Data Protection Act (1984) and the Access to Health Records Act (1990).
Equality and Diversity:
- The post-holder must co-operate with all policies and procedures designed to ensure equality of employment. Co-workers, patients and visitors must be treated equally irrespective of gender, ethnic origin, age, disability, sexual orientation, religion etc.
Patient Confidentiality:
- The post holder must at all times respect patient confidentiality and, in particular, the confidentiality of electronically stored personal data in line with the requirements of the General Data Protection Regulation and in keeping with Hillingdon Primary Care Confederation Information Governance Policy and procedures.
- The post holder should not divulge patient information unless sanctioned by the line manager and required for the role.
Communication & Working Relationships:
- The post-holder will establish and maintain effective communication pathways at all times with project team members.
Special Working Conditions:
- The post-holder is required to travel independently between sites (where applicable), and to attend meetings etc. hosted by other agencies.
Job Description Agreement:
This job description is intended to provide an outline of the key tasks and responsibilities only. There may be other duties required of the post-holder commensurate with the position. This description will be open to regular review and may be amended to take into account development within The Confederation. All members of staff should be prepared to take on additional duties or relinquish existing duties in order to maintain the efficient running of the service or function.
This job description is intended as a basic guide to the scope and responsibilities of the post and is not exhaustive. It will be subject to regular review and amendment as necessary in consultation with the post holder.
Person Specification:
Essential Criteria:
- Mandatory registration with the Physician Associate Managed Voluntary Register (PAMVR)
- Postgraduate medical training in Physician Associate Studies (UK)
- Experience of working as a physician associate
- Ability to Triage
- Experience of dealing with a range of clinical conditions
- Able to work under supervision of a Doctor.
- Ability to effectively triage, assess and diagnose
- Wound care
- Chaperone procedure
- Understand the importance of evidence-based practice
- Broad knowledge of clinical governance
- Ability to record accurate clinical notes
- Ability to work within own scope of practice and understanding when to refer to GPs
- Good IT Skills
- Able to work under pressure
- Work effectively and independently as a Team member
- Demonstrate accountability for delivering professional expertise and direct service provision
- Placement Experience in the following areas :
- Acute and emergency medicine / community medicine
- General surgery
- Obstetrics and gynaecology
- Paediatrics
- Mental Health
*
Desirable Criteria:*
- Experience of working in a primary care environment
- ECGs
- Requesting pathology tests and processing the results, advising patients accordingly
- Diabetes
- Hypertension
- Asthma
- Spirometry
- CHD
- Immunisations (routine, childhood and travel)
- Awareness of issues within the wider health arena
- Knowledge of health promotion strategies
- Understand the requirement for PGDs and associated policy
Job Type: Full-time
Salary: £42,000.00 per year