Advanced Clinical Practitioner

Mersey Care NHS Foundation Trust celebrates diversity and promotes equal opportunities; we are committed to challenging and eliminating racism and other forms of discrimination and advancing and promoting equality of opportunity in the provision of services and creating an inclusive environment for all employees. We believe that everyone has the right to be treated with dignity and respect.

We take positive action to support disadvantaged groups and also particularly encourage applications from ethnic minorities, disabled and LGBTQIA+ people that are under-represented in our workforce. Furthermore we welcome applications from reservists and ex-armed forces personnel as we recognise the benefits of the values, skills, training and experience that they bring to their work with us. We encourage all applicants to share their equality information with us.

Job overview

The St Helens Homeless Health team are looking to recruit an Advanced Clinical Practitioner with a background in physical health due to cover parental leave. The clinician will work alongside colleagues to support the homeless population in St Helens including Asylum seekers. The role is very much based on a community outreach model and you will form part of a wider team including mental health professionals and practitioners. Clinics take place in GP practices, hostels and the Homeless hubs.

Main duties of the job

The post holder is required to deliver an advanced level of clinical practice within their recognised remit. Working within the local and nationally agreed frameworks, the Advanced Clinical Practitioner (ACP) will exercise independent judgment to assess, investigate, diagnose, plan, implement and evaluate the clinical care and management of patients within their care.

The ACP's will provide the teams with advanced clinical leadership, having undergone training to meet all academic and core clinical requirements (4 pillars of advanced practice) relevant to the role. The ACP's reporting lines will be via the Community Division leadership structure. They will work alongside and support the education and development of trainee APs and the wider MDT within the Community Division.

The ACP will have key working relationships with all members of the nursing, medical and multidisciplinary teams, trust management teams and wider partners. The Band 8a ACP practices in partnership with the multidisciplinary team.

Working for our organisation

Mersey Care is one of the largest trusts providing physical health and mental health services in the North West, serving more than 1.4 million people across our region and are also commissioned for services that cover the North West, North Wales and the Midlands.

We offer specialist inpatient and community services that support physical and mental health and specialist inpatient mental health, learning disability, addiction and brain injury services. Mersey Care is one of only three trusts in the UK that offer high secure mental health facilities.

At the heart of all we do is our commitment to 'perfect care' - care that is safe, effective, positively experienced, timely, equitable and efficient. We support our staff to do the best job they can and work alongside service users, their families, and carers to design and develop future services together. We're currently delivering a programme of organisational and service transformation to significantly improve the quality of the services we provide and safely reduce cost as we do so.

Detailed job description and main responsibilities

1. Deliver and participate in the clinical care of patients referred into the Homeless Health Team.
2. Ensure Homeless Health Team has consistent clinical support.
3. Prioritise workload and clinical interventions as appropriate.
4. To be professionally and legally accountable for all work undertaken to practice at an advanced level of professional autonomy and accountability that is within Trust policies and the Nursing and Midwifery Code of Conduct (2008) or the Health & Care Professions Council (HCPC).
5. Provide a level of advanced and comprehensive health assessment based on a specialist body of knowledge.
6. To appropriately assess, examine, investigate, diagnose and treat patients, resulting in the safe management and appropriate referral or discharge of patients.
7. Ensure patients are informed and consent is gained prior to treatment, investigation and management as appropriate.
8. Take responsibility for the supervision/development of junior members of the multi-professional team.
9. Is able to identify the need for appropriate diagnostic tests, interpret the results and act on any results requiring clinical intervention or management.
10. To identify and intervene proactively where circumstances contribute to an unsafe environment for patients, staff or relatives and escalate these to the health and safety team/safeguarding team.
11. To share knowledge and expertise, acting as an expert resource to others across primary and secondary care as appropriate.
12. Contribute to the development and improvement of systems and processes that facilitate patient flow, facilitating timely discharge and preventing hospital admission.
13. To improve the quality of the patient experience by identifying and meeting the individual clinical needs of patients including issues pertaining to child protection & vulnerable adults.
14. Must have completed the Independent Non-Medical Prescribing course and registration with the NMC or HCPC, undertake non-medical prescribing in accordance with the Trust nonmedical prescribing policy and maintain evidence and competence of this qualification. Adhere to CPD requirements of the Trust in relation to maintaining evidence of on-going competence.
15. To maintain up to date patient records in accordance with Trust policy and professional bodies standards.
16. Ability to adapt specialist clinical knowledge and skills to different clinical settings and influence service delivery and patient care throughout the Homeless Health Team.
17. To provide advice on patient care to the wider MDT taking into account all aspects of clinical Governance and act as a specialist resource within the working area.
18. Promote and adhere to the principles and practice of the Trusts clinical governance framework.
19. Contribute to the review and development of clinical patient pathways and the development of the service, ensuring our services are safe.
20. Adhere to trust infection and prevention control policies and procedures.
21. Maintain up to date qualifications in relation to Intermediate life support (ILS).
22. Adhere to IRMER regulations within the ACP role and the agreed Trust radiology policies for the ACP role.
23. Lead on the review and implementation of appropriate NICE guidance.
24. Will support the Homeless Health Team with clinical/competencies.
25. Will be the key link for other teams within the Community Division.
26. Will be key link person to develop relationships with Integrated Care Teams (ICTs).
27. Will be key link person for educating staff around a specific area of expertise.
28. Lead on clinical audits.
29. Act as a link for secondary care to discuss potential patient admissions/discharge through collaborative working.
30. To provide clinical leadership and support.

Person specification

Qualifications

Essential criteria

• Registration with relevant clinical body
• Full Masters in advanced Clinical Practice or equivalent experience or qualification, such as relevant in-depth experience and postgraduate/registration study/qualification
• V300 Non-medical prescribing
• Mentor/teaching qualification

Knowledge/Experience

Essential criteria

• Working autonomously in an advanced role
• Proven leadership skills
• Non-medical prescriber
• Research
• Audits

Desirable criteria

• Community experience
• Working within a multi-disciplinary led environment

Values

Essential criteria

• Improvement
• Accountability
• Respectfulness
• Enthusiasm
• Support
• High professional standards
• Responsive to service users
• Engaging leadership style
• Strong customer service belief
• Transparency and honesty
• Discreet
• Change oriented

Skills

Essential criteria

• Excellent communication skills both written and verbal
• Change management
• Able to work across boundaries within primary and offering support to secondary care
• Negotiation and conflict management skills
• IT literate

Desirable criteria

• EMIS
• ICE
• RIO

Please ensure you check the email account from which you apply for all correspondence. All information regarding your application will come from apps.trac.jobs not NHS Jobs.

Only those applicants who demonstrate clearly how they meet our person specification will be shortlisted for interview.

As a Disability Confident Employer, we offer a guaranteed interview scheme for applicants who consider themselves to be disabled who meet the minimum (essential) criteria for the role in the person specification. If you would like your application to be considered under the Trust's guaranteed interview scheme you can indicate this in the personal information section of your online application form.

Should you require a reasonable adjustment to our recruitment process please email recruitment@merseycare.nhs.uk to ensure that measures can be put in place to support you.

We reserve the right to close any vacancies from further applications when we have received a minimum number of applications from which to make a shortlist. Please ensure you apply without delay if you wish to be considered for this role.

The Trust expects all post holders who require an enhanced DBS for their role subscribe to the DBS Update Service. You will be required to enrol for this service for a fee of £16 per year and maintain registration. Trans applicants who require a DBS check and do not want to reveal details of their previous identity can contact the DBS Sensitive Applications Team (01516761452 or email sensitive@dbs.gsi.gov.uk) with their application number once they have completed their DBS application form. The team can prevent any previous identity showing on the DBS Certificate, unless the applicant has a conviction under their previous details in which case this will need to be disclosed.

Applicants requiring sponsorship may wish to determine the likelihood of obtaining sponsorship for this position by assessing themselves against the criteria on the gov.uk website - https://www.gov.uk/check-uk-visa.

Flexible working requests will be considered for all roles.

Please be advised that the use of Artificial Intelligence on applications is monitored and if you choose to use this, you must declare this on your application form.

Please note: new entrants to the NHS will commence on the first pay point of the relevant band.

Employer certification / accreditation badges

Applicant requirements

You must have appropriate UK professional registration.

This post is subject to the Rehabilitation of Offenders Act 1974 (Exceptions) Order 1975 (Amendment) (England and Wales) Order 2020 and it will be necessary for a submission for Disclosure to be made to the Disclosure and Barring Service.

Documents to download

• Job Description & Person Specification (PDF, 168.0KB)
• OH Risk ID (PDF, 144.4KB)
• A Great Place to Work (PDF, 2.1MB)
• Our People Promise and Charter (PDF, 5.8MB)
• Employee Benefits (PDF, 950.7KB)