Job description

Job responsibilities

Overall Purpose of the Post

To provide advanced, specialist neurological Physiotherapy intervention to patients with complex acute, chronic, or multiple pathology presentations requiring rehabilitation in either the in-patient or community setting, as part of the specialist Community Neuro Rehabilitation Team(CNRT).

Support the Therapy Lead and CNRT Lead in establishing and monitoring a robust clinical governance framework for the specialist Community Neuro Rehabilitation service.

To act as a source of expertise on Neurological conditions and Physiotherapy Management of adults in the community; providing advice to patients, carers and all grades of physiotherapists, other healthcare professionals, consultants, general practitioners and Social Services.

To support the development of an effective and efficient physiotherapy service that is integral to the Kingston neurology pathways.

To provide clinical leadership and line management to the day to day delivery of Physiotherapy in the specialist Community Neuro Rehabilitation service, ensuring the highest possible standards of practice.

To have clinical responsibility for a caseload of complex, neurological patients.

To work autonomously and as a member of a multi-disciplinary team, ensuring the communication of information to all health and social care agencies involved, to deliver seamless healthcare to all patients.

• To provide supervision and support to junior staff, assistants, other professionals and act as clinical educator for undergraduate students.

2. Role of Directorate

To ensure the provision of high quality multidisciplinary community services to the population served by Your Healthcare that aims to enable people to access the right care at the right time delivered by the most appropriately trained professional.

The directorate will further develop the strong partnerships with primary care, social care, the voluntary sector and acute hospitals

• To flexibly respond to control demand on acute hospitals by proactively managing people in the community to avoid unnecessary attendances at hospital and subsequent in patient stays.
• To facilitate timely discharge of patients either to their own home or into an appropriate setting.
• To establish more integrated adult services.

The directorate will pro actively review and transform services to meet the needs of the population adopting evidence based good practice and ensuring the efficient delivery of services that clearly demonstrate value for money.

. Key Result Areas

4.1. Clinical

• To be professionally and legally accountable and responsible for all aspects of own work including the management of individual caseload, working within accepted codes of professional conduct and clinical guidelines (where indicated), to minimise clinical risk.
• To be responsible and accountable for comprehensive physiotherapy assessment, diagnosis and treatment of highly complex neurological conditions including stroke, as an autonomous practitioner and in partnership with the client/ carer.
• To use advanced clinical reasoning skills and evidence based practice to develop individual, specialist rehabilitation treatment/ management care plans which address the clients goals and clinical need.
• Use a range of highly specialist clinical assessments and skills to ensure effective treatment. This will include the use of highly specialised standardised and non standardised assessment tools, observations, questionnaires, multi-agencies/professional information gathering to determine an appropriate treatment plan.
• To monitor, review and continually re-assess clients with complex care plans and objectives and facilitate modification of packages of care/targets as appropriate to enable achievement of their goals.
• To carry out clinical risk assessment and complete risk management plans relevant to the clinical group.
• To undertake physical assessments and techniques requiring sound knowledge of neurological assessments, co-ordination, dexterity, physical ability (i.e. manual handling) and task analysis.
• To demonstrate an understanding of available treatments including client education, skills development/rehabilitation and compensatory techniques or use of medical devices to support an improvement in quality of life and/or client independence.
• To identify and manage where appropriate the mental/ emotional health of the client.
• To assess for splinting and equipment needs and provide as appropriate.
• To provide spontaneous and planned advice, teaching and instruction to relatives, carers and other professionals, to promote understanding of the aims of physiotherapy and to ensure a consistent approach to patient care.

• To be responsible for the competent use of any relevant electrotherapy and gym equipment, and patient appliances as indicated, and to report any defects or malfunctions to the Therapy Lead.

• To maintain and monitor own, and others, professional standards in accordance with the Chartered Society of Physiotherapy guidelines and standards.
• To assess the patients understanding of the treatment proposals to ensure valid informed consent is obtained ensuring practice is within the legal framework for those unable to consent to treatment themselves.
• To work as a member of the multidisciplinary team to proactively manage people in the community to avoid unnecessary attendances/admissions to hospital and subsequent in patient stays.
• To identify appropriate care pathways and liaise / co-ordinate and facilitate multi-disciplinary and multi-agency referrals for clients with complex conditions and their families / carers.

Accept clinical responsibility for a designated caseload of patients and to organise this effectively and efficiently with regard to clinical priorities and use of time.

To write comprehensive discharge reports and any necessary documentation/ reports for a highly specialist caseload as required.

To formulate goal focused treatment plans and delegate appropriately to generic care assistants who work as members of the multidisciplinary team.

• To triage referrals into the service to ensure the waiting time for assessment is met and allocated to appropriate skilled staff.
• To maintain accurate, comprehensive and up-to-date documentation of all patient records in accordance with local and professional standards.

4.2. Service Delivery and Development

Contributes to the development of the community rehabilitation services that supports the delivery of 24-hour high quality patient centred care and a 7 day service that is in line with good practice. This may require some weekend and bank holiday work and altered shift patterns in line with service developments and requirements.

Delivers services in line with Better Standards for Health Care and relevant legislation.

To provide an physiotherapy service in whatever setting is most appropriate to the patients needs during their journey on the community care pathway.

To ensure that quality standards relating to physiotherapy are continually monitored and improved.

To assist the CNRT Lead to ensure the role of Kingston CNRT is publicised to all relevant stakeholders/ service users, ensuring the communication of key contact numbers.

• To promote and develop quality improvements through supervision, audit and other service development activities as appropriate to the needs of the service.

To identify possible areas of development for the Physiotherapy service and work with the Team Lead in developing this.

Lead working parties contributing to the development of policies and protocols for Adult Services in the community which will impact on all service users.

Lead in the development and implementation of guidelines, protocols and patient care pathways for use across community services.

Ensure, as a Physiotherapist, that designated staff implement policy and service development changes.

Support multidisciplinary team working and facilitate line managed staff to effectively prioritise, plan and manage their caseloads.

Ensure outcome measures are in place and further develop these in partnership with others to ensure a high quality service is delivered.

Keep up-to-date with current research, evidence based and best practice and ensure an environment where all staff are encouraged to do this.

Ensure good working knowledge of national and local standards, and monitor quality through participating in clinical audit and evaluation work as required, and support others to do so.

To demonstrate an expert level of understanding of clinical governance and risk management and integrate this into clinical practice and service development.

Be responsible for ensuring the effective selection and use of all treatment resources available.

Be actively involved in the collection of appropriate data and statistics for the use of the service.

To utilise rehabilitation and teaching skills to educate the diverse and multicultural population in a range of disease specific therapeutic techniques, principals and guidelines.

• Provide specialist teaching and training to other members of the MDT regarding the management of adult patients in the community, outpatient and inpatient setting.

Person Specification

Experience

Essential

• Significant post graduate experience within the NHS, in both the Hospital and community settings including Band 6 experience within neurology
• Experience at a specialist level working with adults in neuro rehabilitation/ stroke
• Evidence of recent CPD in relation to neurological conditions/ stroke
• Experience of assessing patients with complex, physical and cognitive needs and appropriate management
• Evidence of spasticity management
• Experience of management for this client group including treatment options
• Experience in Assessment and Rehabilitation of Adults and Older People presenting with complex pathology
• Experience of supervision/ managing/ developing junior staff/ assistants through completing PDRs and teaching
• Proactive involvement in service development
• Experience of implementing training for staff
• Experience of supervising students placements
• Experience of audit/ research and understanding of quality issues

Desirable

• Experience at Band 7 level in relevant post
• Experience of leading a team

Qualifications

Essential

• Diploma/degree in Physiotherapy
• HPC registration
• Evidence of post graduate courses/ CPD within Neuro Rehabilitation
• Relevant CPD Portfolio

Desirable

• Leadership qualification
• MSc qualification or working towards one
• Membership of CSP
• Member of relevant Clinical Interest Group

other

Essential

• As this is a community post, a clean, current driving licence and access to vehicle for work purposes is essential

Skills, abilities & Knowledge

Essential

• Expert clinical knowledge of neurological physiotherapy and ability to apply this to inpatient and community settings
• Expert knowledge of a broad range of neurological conditions both acute and progressive and their therapeutic management
• Advanced clinical reasoning and problem solving skills
• Knowledge of appropriate assessment tools for this client group including outcome measures
• Knowledge of posture and seating programmes and equipment
• Ability to remain updated with professional practice and research and integrate this into daily patient management.
• Ability to provide clinical leadership, motivate and support a team of therapists and assistants
• Excellent oral and written communication
• skills with people from a wide variety of
• backgrounds/ cultures.
• Ability to work effectively an autonomous
• practitioner and
• as part of a team.
• Evidence of teaching and presentation skills,
• both written and verbal.
• Knowledge of recent NHS developments and their impact on service provision
• In-depth knowledge of the principles of
• clinical governance and its application within
• therapy
• Understanding of the roles of other
• professionals (relevant to the client group)
• Report writing, Computer literacy and Information Technology Skills
• Ability to plan and prioritise own caseload and that of others and execute complex discharges
• Be able to balance management and clinical caseload
• Ability to build effective working relationships and actively contribute to MDT and Network meetings
• Ability to work under pressure and set priorities.
• Ability to influence and effect change using a range of skills including negotiation, teaching and assertiveness
• Awareness and acceptance of the rights and needs of service users

Desirable

• Knowledge of broad human resources procedures
• Advanced computer skills for presentations and data analysis

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 .

Employer details

Employer name

Your Healthcare CIC

Address

Hollyfield House, 22 Hollyfield Road

Surbiton

KT5 9AL

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