Practice Nurse

Job description

Job responsibilities

Principal Roles And Responsibilities:

• Deliver care to promote health & well-being, and prevent adverse effects on health and well-being, supporting patients to adopt health promotion strategies that encourage patients to live healthily, and apply principles of self-care. Offering opportunistic health promotion.
• Deliver individual treatment plans for patients with known long-term conditions. Referring to and working with other health as appropriate and in line with national and local policies.
• Prioritise health problems and intervene appropriately to assist the patient in complex, urgent or emergency situations, including initiation of effective emergency care
• Provide information and advice on prescribed or over-the-counter medication on medication regimens, side effects and interactions
• Undertake procedures including BP management, wound management, ear irrigation, cytology and swabs, contraception advice, injections under PGD/PSD, peak flow, urinalysis, blood glucose monitoring
• Recognise, assess and refer patients presenting with mental health problems.
• Implement and participate in vaccination and immunisation programmes for both adults and children in accordance with national and local programmes.
• Advise, support and, where appropriate, administer vaccinations for patients travelling abroad
• Review patients medication for therapeutic effectiveness and appropriate for patient needs in conjunction with practice policy.

Communication

Utilise and demonstrate sensitive communication styles, to ensure patients and their carers are fully informed and consent to treatment

• Anticipate barriers to communication and take action to improve communication
• Utilise communication skills to support patients to adhere to prescribed treatment regimens
• Maintain effective communication with individuals and groups within the practice environment
• Act as an advocate when representing the patients and colleagues viewpoints to others

Delivering a quality service

Recognise and work within own competence and professional code of conduct as regulated by the Nursing and Midwifery Council (NMC)

Produce accurate, contemporaneous and complete records of patient consultation, consistent with legislation, policies and procedures

Prioritise, organise and manage own workload in a manner that maintains and promotes quality

Deliver care according to Greenwich SEL CCG and National Institute for Clinical Excellence (NICE) guidelines ensuring care that is delivered is evidence-based care

Assess effectiveness of care delivery through self, peer and team reviews, benchmarking and formal evaluation, in conjunction with clinical governance systems of the organisations

Support and participate in shared learning across the practice and wider organisation

Participate in the management, review and identify learning from patient feedback, clinical incidents and significant events utilising a structured framework (eg root-cause analysis)

Understand and apply legal policy that supports the identification of vulnerable and abused children and adults, being aware of statutory child/vulnerable adult health procedure and local guidance

Work within policies relating to domestic violence, vulnerable adults, substance abuse and addictive behaviour, and refer as appropriate

Team working

• Understand own role and scope in the organisation and identify how this may develop over time
• Work as an effective and responsible team member, supporting others and exploring the mechanisms to develop new ways of working
• Delegate clearly and appropriately, adopting the principles of safe practice and assessment of competence of those taking on delegated duties
• Ensure clear understanding and utilisation of referral mechanisms within the practice
• Accept delegation from other nurses, prioritise own workload and ensure effective time-management strategies are embedded in own practice
• Work effectively with others to clearly define values, direction and policies impacting upon care delivery
• Participate in team activities that create opportunities to improve patient care
• Participate in and support local projects as agreed with the practice management team

Management of risk

• Manage and assess risk within the areas of responsibility, ensuring adequate measures are in place to protect staff and patients
• Monitor work areas and practices to ensure they are safe and free from hazards and conform to health, safety and security legislation, policies, procedures and guidelines
• Ensure safe storage, rotation and disposal of vaccines and drugs is undertaken. Where appropriate, oversee the monitoring, maintain stock control and documentation of controlled drug usage according to legal requirements
• Undertake mandatory and statutory training
• Apply infection control measures within the practice according to local and national guidelines
• Participate in the local implementation strategies that are aligned to the values and culture of general practice

Utilising information

• Use technology as an aid to management in planning, implementation and monitoring, presenting and communicating information
• Review and process data using accurate Read codes about patients in order to ensure easy and accurate retrieval for monitoring and audit processes
• Be aware and adhere to Caldicot Principles

Learning and development

• Act as mentor to students, assessing competence against set standards as requested and if appropriately qualified
• Provide mentorship and support to HCA and colleagues as appropriate
• Disseminate learning and information gained to other team members in order to share good practice and inform others about current and future developments
• Assess own learning needs and undertake learning as appropriate
• Make effective use of learning opportunities within and outside the workplace, evaluating their effectiveness and feeding back relevant information
• Ensure that meets requirements for NMC Revalidation

Equality and diversity

• Identify patterns of discrimination, take action to overcome this, and promote diversity and quality of opportunity
• Enable others
• Support people who need assistance in exercising their rights
• Adherence to local chaperoning policies
• Act as a role model in good practice relating to equality and diversity and to promote equality and diversity in a non-discriminatory culture
• Accept the rights of individuals to choose their care providers, participate in care and refuse care. Assist patients from marginalised groups to access quality care

General

• In consultation with the line manager to undertake any other duties required for which he/she has adequate training and for which he/she is competent.
• The post holder may be required to work at any of VHP sites and in patients homes in line with service needs
• The post holder must at all times carry out his/her responsibilities with due regard to the organisations Equal Opportunities Policy.

Person Specification

Skills

Essential

• Be well motivated.
• Can work well as a member of team.
• Feels comfortable working in a multi-disciplinary environment.
• Take a consultative approach to their work, appropriately involving relevant people.
• Ability to take a leadership role in managing chronic diseases and QOF.
• Ability to work under pressure.
• A willingness to learn new skills and be open to suggestions.
• High level of self-awareness.
• Motivated and able to motivate others.
• Reliability& Flexibility.
• Fitness to carry out duties manual handling and dexterity requirements.
• Ability to deal with exposure to distressing circumstances or highly emotional events.

Desirable

• Hold a current and full driving licence and have access to a car.

Experience

Essential

• At least 1 year experience in primary care nursing or emergency nurse practitioner role or similar.
• Understanding of role of the practice nurse.
• Ability to contribute effectively to team meetings,
• Ability to demonstrate application of evidence based practice.
• Good time management skills, punctual, able to manage and prioritize work load.
• Excellent communication and interpersonal skills.
• Ability to work unsupervised.
• Evidence of IT literacy and keyboard skills.

Desirable

• Experience and interest in education within a primary care setting.
• Experience of teaching or mentoring.

Qualifications

Essential

• NMC adult nursing registration .
• Adult nursing qualification.

Desirable

• Specialist practitioner degree in practice nursing.
• Holding or working towards qualifications in family planning, asthma, COPD diabetes, CHD and cytology.
• Qualified to degree level.
• Extended and supplementary prescribing qualification.

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).

Employer details

Employer name

Valentine Health Partnership

Address

Ferryview Health Centre

25 John Wilson Street

Woolwich

SE18 6PZ

Employer's website

https://www.valentinehealth.org.uk/ (Opens in a new tab)