Hospice Community Paramedic Practitioner (development post)

Job responsibilities

JOB SUMMARY

To provide specialist palliative care to patients and their families within a service that works every day and at all hours, by phone, by visits and advising and teaching others. The role will provide both proactive and reactive clinical support for adults living with a progressive illness.

CLINICAL RESPONSIBILITIES

To work within a team providing specialist palliative care to patients, within a community setting, the hospice, and community units and care homes.

Supporting carers and other providers delivering care, through the advice line, training and education.

To undertake in-depth holistic assessments of patients with palliative care needs, regardless of their diagnosis, and plan care to meet patient outcomes.

To provide information, advice, psychological and spiritual care to patients, their families and carers, liaising and referring on as necessary to appropriate healthcare professionals in the hospice, hospital and community

To support with admission prevention where possible but to support timely admission for patients with reversible causes.

To visit patients and families when a specialist consultation is needed or seeing patients in the Community Unit when able to travel.

To provide telephonic support to patients, families and other professionals provided day and night.

To attend and participate in multi-disciplinary palliative care meetings around patient care management, and present patients at the community MDT and to the Caseload reviewer.

Provide a rapid response service for patients needing urgent specialist care. Providing care as needed such as drugs, position changes and interventions, if appropriate to improve the comfort of the patient, or advising others to do so.

To represent the hospice and patients at meetings, as required.

To maintain and promote effective and efficient working and communication with all involved in the patient, to ensure appropriate sharing of information.

To provide support and expertise to other professionals, as required, acting as a role model and a resource providing expert knowledge and support.

To supervise junior roles to be responsible for supervision, annual appraisals and delegation of workload.

To comply with relevant drug policies, including Non-Medical Prescribing and legislation concerning drugs and administration in the future.

To attend Gold Standard Framework (GSF) Meetings.

To have an understanding of safeguarding principles and be able to apply these within everyday practice and intervention/within your role.

MANAGEMENT RESPONSIBILITIES

To work with the Community Team Leader, to plan and implement change and development within the Community Team and wider Hospice team where this would increase effectiveness and efficiency of practice.

To work as part of a team to ensure the priorities of the service are met especially in times of absences and high demand. To adapt to the pressures of changing demands, day to day

Ensure that the service is covered if sickness occurs

To manage patient caseloads, ensuring good communication, planning and reviews.

To participate in education and training.

To maintain patient statistics, and comprehensive patient records. Making sure that other team members are able to carry on with the caseload easily in your absent, when needed.

To keep up to date with best practise, disseminate and embed the learning into patient care.

Lead the development of clinical standards, research and clinical audit, working within the Clinical Governance Framework of the Hospice and in palliative care in general.

To record all equipment loaned out, ensuring records are kept up to date and that equipment is returned.

To work autonomously making decisions but seeking advice from colleagues or/and senior clinical team, as needed.

To deputise for the Community Team Leader in times of absence.

PERSONNEL RESPONSIBILITIES

To participate in professional staff placements and lay persons to the community service.

Plan and deliver specialist education and training e.g.; symptom control for GPs and DNs

To recognise indications of staff stress and to facilitate staff support.

To participate in education and training e.g. syringe drivers.

To recognise indications of staff stress and to facilitate staff support.

EDUCATIONAL RESPONSIBILITIES

To work with the Community Team Leader, identifying own educational needs.

An individual educational plan will be discussed at appointment of this post.

To meet regularly with existing paramedic practitioner to work through competency document to evidence your personal development within the role.

Contribute to the identification of training needs both internal and external.

To update own specialist skills and knowledge in cancer and palliative care, through continuous professional development.

To demonstrate a research-based approach to care and work in conjunction with the multi-professional team towards applying this to practice.

To participate in internal and external education programmes as required.

To give feedback from attended education programmes/study days to the multi-professional Team.

To participate in supervision sessions/peer support, as required.

PERSONAL DEVELOPMENT

To devise a personal development plan with the Team leader in line with the Hospice objectives and personal needs.

To maintain and increase personal, clinical and managerial skills.

ORGANISATIONAL

To work at all times within the policies and guidelines of the Hospice, participate in the ongoing review and update of the policies and guidelines within the community team and act within HCPC guidelines at all times.

To ensure effective use of resources.

To play an active part in the development and maintenance of good relationships with all who have business with the Hospice.

To respect at all times the confidentiality of information covering patients, staff and volunteers.

To promote the Hospice philosophy of care towards patients, relatives and visitors.

To uphold the hospice and individual team values at all times

Specific Skills

Essential

• High level of organisational skills.
• Able to prioritise and time manage work.
• Good problem solver.
• Able to work independently and within a team.
• Able to analyse complex patient information.
• IT literate.

Qualifications

Essential

• Qualified Paramedic registered with the HCPC
• Educated to degree level

Desirable

• Educated to Masters level or working towards, in palliative care or a similar related qualification.
• Educationalist qualification or proven teaching experience
• Advanced communication course
• Non-Medical Prescriber

Personal Attributes

Essential

• Manage fluctuating demands and being approachable to other staff who need additional support.
• Confident in finding resolutions which may be challenging to implement.
• Reflective in order to improve own practise and other staff.
• Highly motivated team player who is able to challenge and make suggestions when they identify a need for improvement.
• Adaptable and flexible.
• Own transport, current driving licence and an ability to travel across the patch as needed.

Experience

Essential

• Minimum 2 years experience as a paramedic.
• Experienced in providing palliative advice and support to end of life patients, families and other professionals.
• Experienced in assessing patient needs that may be complex and subject to change.
• Negotiation skills.
• Good knowledge of community care.
• Working in the community and in the patients own home.

Desirable

• Knowledge of the wider palliative care agenda.
• Advanced communication skills.
• Service Development.

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).