Job responsibilities
MAIN DUTIES & RESPONSIBILITIES:
To work closely with GPs and other primary care professionals as
an autonomous and accountable MSK practitioner.
Primary Key Responsibilities
- Work independently, without day-to-day
supervision, to assess, diagnose, triage and manage patients, taking
responsibility for prioritising and managing a caseload of the PCNs registered
patients.
- Receive patients who self-refer (where systems
permit) or from a clinical professional within the PCN and, where required,
refer to other health professionals within the Practice/PCN or Health Economy.
- Work as part of a multi-disciplinary team in a
patient-facing role, using their expert knowledge of movement and function
issues, to create stronger links for wider services through clinical
leadership, teaching and evaluation.
- Develop integrated and tailored care
programmes in partnership with patients, providing a range of first-line
treatment options including self-management, referral to rehabilitation-focused
services and social prescribing.
- Make use of their full scope of practice,
developing skills relating to independent prescribing, injection therapy and
investigation to make professional judgements and decisions in unpredictable
situations, including when provided with incomplete or contradictory
information. They will take responsibility for making and justifying these
decisions.
- Manage complex interactions, including working
with patients with psychosocial and mental health needs, referring onwards as
required and including social prescribing when appropriate.
- Communicate effectively with patients and
their carers where applicable, complex and sensitive information regarding
diagnoses, pathology, prognosis and treatment choices supporting personalised
care.
- Implement all aspects of effective clinical
governance for own practice, including undertaking regular audit and
evaluation, supervision and training
- Develop integrated and tailored care
programmes in partnership with patients through:
o
Effective shared decision-making with a range
of first-line management options (appropriate for a patients level of activation)
o
Assessing levels of patient activation to
support a patients own level of knowledge, skills and confidence to
self-manage their conditions, ensuring they can evaluate and improve the
effectiveness of self-management interventions, particularly for those at low
levels of activation.
o
Agreeing with the patients appropriate
support for self-management through referral to rehabilitation-focused services
and wider social prescribing as appropriate
o Designing and implementing plans that
facilitate behavioural change, optimise patients physical activity and
mobility, support the fulfilment of personal goals and independence and reduce
the need for pharmacological interventions
- Request and progress investigations (such as
x-rays and blood tests) and referrals to facilitate the diagnosis and choice of
treatment regime including considering the limitations of these investigations,
interpreting and acting on results and feedback to aid patients diagnoses and
management plans.
- Be accountable for decisions and actions via Health and Care Professions Council (HCPC)
registration, supported by a professional culture of peer networking/review and
engagement in evidence-based practice.
Secondary Responsibilities
The
following sets out the key wider responsibilities of First Contact
Physiotherapists:
a.
Work across the multi-disciplinary team to
create and evaluate effective, streamlined clinical pathways and services.
b. Provide leadership and support on MSK clinical
and service development across the PCN, alongside learning opportunities for
the whole multidisciplinary team within primary care.
c.Develop relationships and a collaborative
working approach across the PCN, supporting the integration of pathways in
primary care.
d.Encourage collaborative working across the
wider health economy and be a key contributor to supporting the development of
physiotherapy clinical services across the PCN.
e.Liaise with secondary and community care
services, and secondary and community MSK services where required, using local
social and community interventions as required to support the management of
patients within the PCN.
f. Support regional and national research and
audit programmes to evaluate and
improve the effectiveness of the First Contact Practitioner (FCP) programme.
This will include communicating outcomes and integrating findings into own and
wider service practice and pathway development.