Theatre Nurse/Theatre Practitioner (Scrub)

Job responsibilities

Clinical Care

Delivering Patient Care: Provide high-quality care throughout the perioperative process, adhering to Independent Health Group policies and procedures.

Theatre List Coordination: Support efficient theatre list coordination, ensuring timely start and finish times to optimise workflow.

Circulating Duties: Be proficient in circulating duties to effectively support Healthcare Assistants (HCAs) undertaking this role, ensuring smooth workflow and patient care.

Equipment and Theatre Preparation: Ensure all required equipment and theatre preparations are completed in advance to prevent delays or cancellations. Additionally, plan ahead by ensuring equipment and sundries are stocked and available for subsequent lists, supporting efficient forward planning.

Theatre Suite Hygiene: Maintain a clean and safe surgical environment, adhering to all relevant hygiene protocols, including daily, weekly, and monthly cleaning schedules.

Effective Communication: Provide support and reassurance to patients during local anaesthetic procedures, ensuring proper positioning, advocacy, and post-operative care advice.

Record-Keeping: Maintain accurate, timely, and reflective clinical records in both paper and digital formats via the Patient Administration System. Engage with new systems and processes as they are implemented.

Patient Safety

Upholding Patient Safety Standards: Adhere to WHO surgical safety guidelines and promote a culture of speaking up for safety. Utilise the "Stop the Line" tool to immediately address concerns to ensure patient safety issues are acknowledged, work is safely paused, and corrective action is taken collaboratively:

o Say WHAT you see,

o Say WHAT you are concerned about,

o Say WHAT you want to happen next.

Quality Improvement and Audits: Engage in quality improvement initiatives, contribute to audits, report incidents, and support resource management to enhance patient safety.

Resuscitation Competency: Maintain up-to-date competence in emergency resuscitation techniques, specifically at the Immediate Life Support (ILS) level.

Waste Management and Infection Prevention & Control (IPC): Ensure safe waste disposal and strict adherence to IPC measures, following Aseptic Non-Touch Technique (ANTT) best practices.

Escalation Protocols: Use NEWS2 scoring to detect early signs of patient deterioration, escalating concerns appropriately through line management and incident reporting systems.

Health and Safety: Uphold workplace safety standards, including safe sharps management, fire safety, and overall risk mitigation for patients, colleagues, and yourself. This includes being aware of any business continuity and emergency planning protocols.

Promoting a Culture of Safety: Follow established safety protocols to maintain high standards of care in alignment with the Patient Safety Incident Response Framework (PSIRF).

Incident Reporting and Investigations: Ensure timely incident reporting and actively contribute to patient safety investigations using the Systems Engineering Initiative for Patient Safety (SEIPS) methodology, helping identify lessons learned and integrating improvements into practice.

Ongoing Professional Development

• Ensure Competence & Self-Directed Learning: Identify personal learning and professional development needs, proactively seeking growth opportunities. Serve as a versatile Theatre Practitioner across areas such as scrub, admit, discharge, and recovery.

Professional Knowledge and Competence: Keep abreast of professional best practices, research developments, and maintain your professional registration.

Safeguarding

Safeguarding Children

Everyone working for IHG regardless of the work they do has a statutory duty to safeguard and promote the welfare of children. When children and/or their carers use our services, it is essential that all child protection concerns are both recognised and acted on appropriately. You have a responsibility to ensure you are familiar with and follow the child protection policies and procedures. To ensure you are equipped to carry out your duties effectively, you must also undertake mandatory child protection training and updates at the competency level appropriate to the work you do.

Safeguarding Adults

Everyone working for IHG regardless of the work they do has a duty to safeguard and promote the welfare of vulnerable adults. When patients and/or their carers use our services, it is essential that all protection concerns are both recognised and acted on appropriately. You have a responsibility to ensure you are familiar with and follow IHG policies in relation to safeguarding vulnerable adults. To ensure you are equipped to carry out your duties effectively, you must also undertake mandatory vulnerable adult protection training and updates at the competency level appropriate to the work you do.

Note.

This job description is not intended to be either prescriptive or exhaustive but aims to give an overview of the level of responsibility, the activities and the attributes required of the role. The services provided by IHG are developing and expanding rapidly, and a degree of flexibility, change and development is expected in all roles.

Personal Competencies

Essential

• Friendly, supportive, and reassuring
• Excellent communication
• Accountability for safe patient care
• Collaborative and improvement-focused

Experience

Essential

• Multi-disciplinary healthcare team experience

Desirable

• Scrub-trained for day cases
• Governance and risk management experience
• Quality improvement involvement

Qualifications

Essential

• Degree in relevant field or equivalent
• Registered Nurse (NMC) or ODP (HCPC)
• Evidence of ongoing professional development

Desirable

• Immediate Life Support (ILS) certification

Knowledge & Skills

Essential

• Understanding of high-quality clinical care
• Effective communication with diverse patients
• Clear written and verbal skills
• Ability to give/receive feedback
• Teamwork in a multi-disciplinary setting
• Accurate patient record-keeping
• Familiar with electronic patient records
• Willing to develop scrub skills

Desirable

• Knowledge of WHO protocols and NEWS2 scoring
• Infection Prevention and Control (IPC) knowledge

Additional Requirements

Essential

• Flexibility to travel between sites as required

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).