Shropshire Rural Alliance PCN Social Prescriber

Job description

Job responsibilities

Promoting social prescribing, its role in self-management, and the wider determinants of health.

Build relationships with key staff in GP practices within the local Primary Care Network (PCN), attending relevant meetings, becoming part of the wider network team, providing reports including monitoring and evaluation including general feedback on social prescribing.

Be proactive in developing strong links with all local agencies to encourage referrals, recognising what they need to be confident in the service to make appropriate referrals.

Work in partnership with all local agencies to raise awareness of social prescribing and how partnership working can reduce pressure on statutory services, improve health outcomes and enable a holistic approach to care.

Seek regular feedback about the quality of service and impact of social prescribing on referral agencies.

Be proactive in encouraging self-referrals and connecting with all local communities, particularly those communities that statutory agencies may find hard to reach.

Provide personalised support

Give people time to tell their stories and focus on what matters to me. Build trust with the person, providing non-judgmental support, empathy respecting diversity and lifestyle choices. Work from a strength-based approach focusing on a persons assets.

Be a friendly source of information about wellbeing and prevention approaches. Help people identify the wider issues that impact on their health and wellbeing, such as debt, poor housing, being unemployed, loneliness and caring responsibilities.

Work with the person, their families and carers and consider how they can all be supported through social prescribing.

Help people maintain or regain independence through living skills, adaptations, enablement approaches and simple safeguards.

Work with individuals to co-produce a simple personalised support plan based on the persons priorities, interests, values and motivations including what they can expect from the groups, activities and services they are being connected to and what the person can do for themselves to improve their health and wellbeing.

Where appropriate, facilitate the introduction of people to community groups, activities and statutory services, ensuring they are comfortable. Follow up to ensure they are happy, able to engage, included and receiving good support.

Where people may be eligible for a personal health budget, help them to explore this option as a way of providing funded, personalised support to be independent, including helping people to gain skills for meaningful employment, where appropriate.

Support community groups and Voluntary organisations to receive referrals:

Forge strong links with local organisations, community and neighbourhood level groups, utilising their networks and building on whats already available to create a map or menu of community groups and assets.

Develop supportive relationships with local organisations, community groups and statutory services, to make timely, appropriate and supported referrals for the person being introduced.

Ensure that local community groups and organisations being referred to have basic procedures in place for maintaining vulnerable individuals are safe and where there are safeguarding concerns work with all partners to deal appropriately with issues. Where such policies and procedures are not in place, support groups to work towards this standard before referrals are made to them.

Support local groups to act in accordance with Information Governance policies and procedures, ensuring compliance with GDPR.

Work collectively with all local partners to ensure community groups are strong and sustainable:

Encourage people who have been connected to community support through social prescribing to volunteer and give their time freely to others, in order to build their skills, confidence and strengthen community resilience.

Develop a team of volunteers within your service to provide buddying support for people, starting new groups and finding creative community solutions to local issues.

Encourage people, their families and carers to provide peer support and to do things together, such as setting up new community groups or volunteering.

Provide a regular confidence survey to community groups receiving referrals, to ensure that they are strong, sustained and have the support they need to be part of social prescribing.

Person Specification

Knowledge and Skills

Essential

• Ability to listen, empathise with people and provide person centred support in a non-judgemental way.
• Able to get along with people from all backgrounds and communities, respecting lifestyles and diversity.
• Commitment to reducing health inequalities and proactively working to reach people from all communities.
• Able to support people in a way that inspires trust and confidence, motivating others to reach their potential.
• Ability to communicate effectively, both verbally and in writing, with people, their families, carers, community groups, partner agencies and stakeholders.
• Ability to identify risk and assess/manage risk when working with individuals.
• Have a strong awareness and understanding of when it is appropriate or necessary to refer people back to other health professionals/agencies, when what the person requires is beyond the Social Prescriber remit e.g. when there is a mental health need requiring a qualified practitioner.
• Ability to maintain effective working relationships and to promote collaborative practice with all colleagues.
• Commitment to collaborative working with all local agencies including Voluntary & Health & Social Care multi-disciplinary organisations and community groups.
• Demonstrates personal accountability, emotional resilience and works well under pressure.
• Ability to organise, plan and prioritise on own initiative, including when under pressure and meeting deadlines.
• High level of written and oral communication skills.
• Ability to work flexibly and enthusiastically within a team or on own initiative.
• Knowledge of and ability to work to policies and procedures, including Confidentiality, GDPR, Safeguarding, Lone Working, Information Governance and Health and Safety.
• Demonstrable commitment to professional and personal development.
• Experience of working directly in a community development context, Adult Health and Social Care, Learning Support or Public Health/Health Improvement either paid or voluntary.
• Experience of supporting people, their families and carers in a related role either paid or voluntary.
• Experience of working with the Voluntary sector including with volunteers and small community groups.
• Experience of partnership/collaborative working and building relationships across a variety of organisations.
• Understanding of the wider determinants of health, including social, economic and environmental factors and their impact on communities.
• Knowledge of IT systems, including ability to use Microsoft packages Word, Excel, Emails and the internet to create simple plans and reports.
• Meets DBS reference standards and has a clear criminal record, in line with the law on spent convictions.
• Willingness to work flexible hours when required to meet work demands.

Desirable

• Training in motivational coaching and interviewing or equivalent experience.
• Experience of supporting people with their mental health, either paid or voluntary.
• Experience of data collection and providing reports for monitoring and evaluating to assess the impact of services.
• Knowledge of the personalised care approach.

Qualifications

Essential

• Educated to GCSE level or equivalent.

Other

Essential

• Meet DBS reference standards and criminal records checks.
• Access to own transport / full clean driving license.
• Ability to travel across the locality if needed.

Experience

Essential

• Experience of working directly in a community development context, Adult Health and Social Care, Learning Support or Public Health/Health Improvement either paid or voluntary.
• Experience of supporting people, their families and carers in a related role either paid or voluntary.
• Experience of working with the Voluntary sector including with volunteers and small community groups.
• Experience of partnership/collaborative working and building relationships across a variety of organisations.

Desirable

• Experience of working in Primary Care/GP Practice.
• Experience of data collection and providing reports for monitoring and evaluating to assess the impact of services.
• Experience of supporting people with their mental health, either paid or voluntary.

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.

Employer details

Employer name

Pontesbury & Worthen Medical Practice

Address

Hall Bank

Pontesbury

Shrewsbury

Shropshire

SY5 0RF

Employer's website

https://www.pontesburyworthenmp.co.uk/ (Opens in a new tab)