NHS Bedfordshire, Luton and Milton Keynes Integrated Care Board

Clinical Community Bed Manager

This job is now closed

Job summary

The post holder will be required to provide strong leadership and expert support to the Discharge to Assess model across Pathway 2 & 3 by managing discharge flow, primarily from Bedford and Luton & Dunstable Hospitals, but will include neighbouring hospitals also. Additionally, this role will manage flow through and from both community commissioned, and spot purchased beds on behalf of the ICB whilst holding clinical oversight responsibility to ensure appropriate decisions are being made in a timely manner ensuring patient safety and a positive experience.

The role will include working with the acute discharge teams and other MDT colleagues, liaising with health and social care professionals to ensure the appropriate level of care is delivered in a timely way, and to meet the requirements of the national Discharge Policy.

The post is pivotal to flow, working alongside provider colleagues, providing senior clinical leadership and oversight of referrals and supporting the operational teams in post. The postholder will be required to provide sitreps and other updates, drawing information from a variety of sources and reporting to the system on a daily basis which includes current bed stock, length of stay, cost and escalation of breaches over the 6-week intermediate timeframe.

Main duties of the job

The principle aim of the role is to achieve flow through community bedded resources, improve clinical pathways, achieve efficiencies where possible and improved patient outcomes within the role's remit through an integrated system approach.

Working closely with the providers this post will ensure that clinical leadership, scrutiny and oversight is maintained throughout the patient journey post-acute discharge whilst delivering timely discharges both in and out of the system's Discharge to Assess beds to maintain flow and reduce delays

About us

The Bedfordshire, Luton and Milton Keynes (BLMK) Integrated Care Board (ICB) serves the people of BLMK, bringing together health and care and wider public sector and VCSE partners to support and improve our resident's wellbeing. The employees of the BLMK ICB work as part of the BLMK Integrated Care System (ICS), in particular working with the NHS and social care and underpinned by relationships across our wider public sector and voluntary, community and social enterprise organisations.

Every role within the ICB has a line of sight to improving the wellbeing of our population.

The Individualised Care and System Flow department includes a wide range of services encompassing unplanned care, (i.e. emergency care), discharge and intermediate provision, acute services and pathways for those living with frailty including those for older people and/or those at end of life and personalised care through the commissioning of care packages and placements.

Date posted

13 December 2023

Pay scheme

Agenda for change

Band

Band 8a

Salary

Depending on experience Dependent on experience

Contract

Permanent

Working pattern

Full-time, Flexible working

Reference number

465-5849134-A

Job locations

Borough Hall

Cauldwell Street

Bedford

MK42 9AP

Job description

Job responsibilities

Key Duties and Responsibilities

Supporting the Head of Capacity, Flow and Frailty to develop and implement local policies and plans ensuring coherence to the national Discharge Policy and associated guidance. These will often impact other areas and services

Direct line management of ICB employed D2A therapists including appraisals, regular 1:1s, absence management, health & well-being and recruitment and retention of the service

Supporting the acute hospitals in safe and timely flow from the hospital through to discharge in the community

To support, develop, review and implement clear processes which embed the culture of Discharge to Assess on behalf of the ICS

Senior clinical leadership and oversight to the operational teams that manage patient flow

Support the community care homes to ensure safe and timely discharge from the Discharge to Assess beds to enable capacity

Liaising with operational discharge planning teams on a daily basis both in Bedfordshire and any other hospitals with pending referrals to keep them informed and support timely discharges

Ensuring the operational teams receive correct documentation with all relevant clinical and social detail required to allow for planning of admissions

Liaising with operational teams regarding any incomplete or missing information to minimise delays in onward referrals

Building and maintaining strong relationships with key senior stakeholders including CCG, social care, acute & community services within the care provider sector

Strengthening relationships with Bedfordshire Care Group Ltd to build trust and to streamline discharge processes and prevent avoidable delays and readmissions

Promoting, developing and maintaining effective communication and robust working relationships with all departments, agencies and personnel involved in the discharge process and to ensure all queries are dealt with professionally and promptly

Actively promoting effective team working and interdisciplinary relationships and work as an excellent role model for professional practice

Having clinical responsibility and oversight of all referrals into and out of community beds supporting right patient, right bed, first time whilst ensuring COVID guidelines are adhered to

Working as a skilled practitioner and to be proactive in the management of capacity to ensure the equitable access to appropriate beds for all suitable patients under the Discharge to Assess pathway

Having sound analytical ability and critical thinking skills in complex and rapidly changing situations

Supporting promotion/development and maintenance of a culture within the environment which challenges and questions practice, decision making and promotes the quality of thinking amongst colleagues

Acting on behalf of the ICB to maintain clinical oversight of all Discharge to Assess patients to ensure appropriate decisions are being made and onward referrals are managed to reduce delays and improve flow

Leading and managing effective multi-disciplinary team meetings with each community care provider to ensure robust communication and agreed next steps are in place and followed up to reduce delays in patients pathway and improve their experience/outcome

Acting on behalf of the ICB and participate in multi-agency case conferences as required

Maintaining accurate records and data, or supervising those who do, ensuring they are kept up to date

Have working knowledge of MCAs and BIA regarding hospital discharge into community beds and demonstrating that knowledge in a leadership capacity

Avoiding delays to community discharge, but having clear action plans for those patients for whom this occurs

Providing robust support to and deputise for the Senior Commissioner for System Flow in all aspects of Pathway 2&3 performance

To support the development of plans to meet the NHS Plan and local priorities in relation to Individualised Care & System Flow services

To use national best practice tools and benchmarking data, such as GIRFT, RIGHTCARE and others to propose pathway changes that improve outcomes and efficiencies

Ensuring strong financial controls and processes for any delegated budget including:

Manage budgets that have been devolved in a way that is compliant with the CCGs standing orders and standing financial instructions in the discharge of this responsibility

Constantly striving for value for money and greater efficiency in the use of the budgets and to ensure that they operate in recurrent financial balance year on year

Where appropriate, the postholder will be part of the ICB representation at relevant clinical networks and partnership forums

The post holder will build a combination of subject matter expertise and technical skills to develop a strong service delivery

The job description and person specification are an outline of the tasks, responsibilities and outcomes required of the role. The job holder will carry out other duties as may be reasonably required by their line manager

The job description and person specification may be reviewed on an ongoing basis in accordance with the changing needs of the organisation