Advanced Nurse Practitioner (ACP)

The Christie NHS Foundation Trust; Manchester; On-site; GBP 38,000 - 52,000; Part time

Job summary

The Christie NHS Foundation Trust is recruiting an experienced Advanced Clinical Practitioner to lead the ACSOS programme within the Supportive Oncology Service, based in Manchester. The role combines autonomous assessment, complex care planning and service development across Acute Oncology, Ambulatory Care and palliative care teams.

This 18-month fixed-term, 27-hour per week post emphasises education, leadership, and research to implement innovative supportive oncology pathways and improve

Qualifications

• Registered professional with NMC/HCPC registration.
• Degree level 7 in a relevant specialty or equivalent.
• Evidence of post-registration autonomous practice/clinical skills.
• HEE Digital Staff badge demonstrating AP accreditation is desirable.

Responsibilities

• Provide expert assessment, diagnosis, treatment and ongoing management for patients with complex supportive oncology and acute cancer care needs.
• Manage a caseload requiring advanced clinical decision-making, symptom optimisation and personalised care planning.
• Lead development of ACSOS pathways and collaborate with Acute Oncology, Ambulatory Care and palliative care teams.
• Deliver education, supervision and workforce development across the service line.
• Participate in audits, research and quality improvement initiatives to drive service development.

Skills

Advanced clinical assessment

Autonomous practice

Leadership & management

Education & training

Research & quality improvement

Education

NMC/HCPC registration

Degree level 7 or equivalent

Masters/AP Masters/PGCert

Research qualification

Job description

An exciting opportunity has arisen for an experienced Advanced Clinical Practitioner to join the Supportive Oncology Service at The Christie NHS Foundation Trust. This innovative new role will lead the development of the Acute Cancer Symptom Optimisation and Support (ACSOS) programme, supporting patients with complex cancer-related symptoms through proactive assessment, intervention and personalised care.
Working within the Ambulatory Care Unit and alongside Acute Oncology, Supportive Care and multidisciplinary teams, you will provide advanced clinical assessment, diagnosis and management for patients with highly complex needs. The role is designed to improve symptom control, avoid unnecessary hospital admissions and support patients to receive the right care, in the right place, at the right time.
As an autonomous practitioner, you will work across the four pillars of advanced practice: clinical practice, leadership and management, education and training, and research, quality improvement and service development. You will play a key role in developing new pathways of care, improving patient outcomes and supporting delivery of personalised, proactive supportive oncology services across the cancer pathway.
This is a unique opportunity to shape and lead an innovative service that aligns with national cancer priorities and transforms the experience of patients living with complex cancer-related symptoms.
This is an 18 month fixed term, 27 hour position

Main duties of the job

The Advanced Clinical Practitioner will provide expert assessment, diagnosis, treatment and ongoing management for patients with complex supportive oncology and acute cancer care needs. Working autonomously, you will manage a caseload of patients requiring advanced clinical decision-making, symptom optimisation and personalised care planning.
You will work closely with Acute Oncology, Ambulatory Care, palliative care, cancer site-specific teams and community services to support admission avoidance, facilitate timely interventions and improve continuity of care across organisational boundaries. A key focus of the role will be identifying opportunities for earlier intervention, improving symptom management and supporting patients to remain well and independent for longer.
The post holder will provide clinical leadership, contribute to service development and support implementation of innovative supportive oncology pathways. You will deliver education and supervision, support workforce development and act as an expert resource for colleagues across the Trust. The role will also include participation in audit, research and quality improvement initiatives, ensuring services are evidence-based, effective and responsive to patient need.

Working for our organisation

The Christie is one of Europe’s leading cancer centres, treating over 60,000 patients a year. We are based in Manchester and serve a population of 3.2 million across Greater Manchester & Cheshire, but as a national specialist around 15% patients are referred to us from other parts of the country.

We provide radiotherapy through one of the largest radiotherapy departments in the world; chemotherapy on site and through 14 other hospitals; highly specialist surgery for complex and rare cancer; and a wide range of support and diagnostic services. We are also an international leader in research, with world first breakthroughs for over 100 years.

We run one of the largest early clinical trial units in Europe with over 300 trials every year. Cancer research in Manchester, most of which is undertaken on the Christie site, has been officially ranked the best in the UK.

Detailed job description and main responsibilities

Along with the service line senior leadership team, including Advanced Practitioners and Consultant Practitioners, Advanced Practitioners will provide positive leadership, connecting patients, staff and partners with the vision and values of The Christie NHS Foundation Trust.

They will use their expert knowledge and skills to assist in leading and delivering safe and clinically effective, quality driven, personalised care for people within our communities. Working alongside the senior managers and clinicians, they will assist in leading services that meet the needs of patients and their families to achieve improved health outcomes and promote health and wellbeing while demonstrating care, compassion, competence, communication, courage, and commitment.

The post holder will provide advanced and specialist level comprehensive assessments for patients with highly complex presentations, case management, treatment, and education. This will predominantly be delivered within the setting of their service line and may extend into inpatient and clinic settings to support with highly complex cases and patient pathways.

Central to the role will be critical thinking and using advanced decision-making skills to assess and manage patients accurately and safely. However, at no times should clinical staff work outside their defined level of competence. If the post holder has concerns regarding this, they should immediately discuss this with their line manager.

The Advanced Practitioners position is service driven and will cover the four pillars of advanced practice as outlined in the multi-professional framework for Advanced Practice in England (2025); clinical practice; leadership and management; education and training; research, quality improvement and service development.

The Advanced Practitioners role will support senior leadership collectively delivering high quality, effective and consistent care. Fostering effective working relationships with colleagues across a range of specialties and agencies.

Provide clinical/professional supervision and support for clinical staff and trainee advanced practitioners within the service line not purely within their own profession. This will be in an associate workplace supervisor role once more than 2 years qualified and at 3 years can be as a coordinating education supervisor (as guided by the specific University) having attended a supervisor training course.

Provide education and development in the delivery of core and specialist training for the service line. The post holder will be expected to support in the creation of an environment of continuous quality improvement, develop clinical practice and care pathways designed around the people within our services and to ensure that delivery of care is regularly reviewed ensuring CQC compliance and embedding NICE and other quality benchmarks in good practice.

Assist in the maintenance of a culture of service improvement which promotes quality and safety and striving to improve and develop.

To support in embedding evidence-based practice, clinical research, supporting a research portfolio for studies within the service line, linking with relevant stakeholders and recruiting patients for studies in fields relevant to their clinical practice.

To promote and support patient and public involvement in research. To assist in and undertake local and national audits. To identify and support implementation of service improvement plans.

A job plan will be agreed to meet service and role needs, specifying the ratio of contracted hours to be spent delivering direct patients care (maximum 80%) and the time to be spent undertaking supported professional activity (minimum 20%), being reviewed annually or more frequently as required.

See attached job description for further details and information.

Person specification

Qualifications

• Registered professional, (e.g., NMC/HCPC)
• Educated to Degree Level 7 in a relevant specialty
• Evidence of post registration development in autonomous practice/clinical skills (e.g., Masters/AP Masters/PG Cert/PGradDip)
• HEE Digital Staff badge demonstrating AP accreditation with The Centre for Advancing Practice
• Recognized leadership and management course
• Completion of relevant extended role scope competencies
• Teaching qualification
• Relevant research qualification – e.g., Good clinical Practice

Experience

• Experience of advanced clinical practice at 7/8 level in relevant Clinical specialty
• Experience of a Senior Professional role in relevant Clinical specialty
• Enhanced Clinical skills relevant to area of Clinical practice
• Experienced in managing own caseload of patients as an independent practitioner
• Experience of implementing evidence-based practice
• Experience of working in partnership with multi-disciplinary teams
• Experience working within Supportive & Palliative Care
• Experience working with Acute Oncology
• Experience of teaching and supervising undergraduate students and registered staff
• Experience of teaching and presenting
• Experience of analysis and reporting of data
• Experience in undertaking audit, quality improvement and service evaluation
• Experience of inter-agency working and system delivery
• Clinical experience of leading health care services within specialty
• Experience of research and implementation of evidence-based practice in relevant clinical specialty
• Experience in undertaking research projects and publishing articles

Skills

• Excellent communication skills, written and verbal, to enable communication with a wide range of stakeholders and for clinical purposes, negotiation, leadership, and influence. This includes managing highly complex communications where there may be barriers to understanding.
• Highly developed interpersonal skills, with meticulous attention to detail
• Complex planning and organisational skills
• Evidence of autonomous decision making
• Evidence of problem-solving skills
• Evidence of practice innovation and quality improvement
• Excellent IT skills for data management, reporting, presentation, and communication
• Evidence of enhanced clinical skills
• Self-motivated and able to prioritise within a large and varied workload
• Ability to identify and optimise learning opportunities
• Ability to work as part of a team and ability to command respect of the multi-disciplinary team
• Self-motivated, self-starter, and organised
• Flexible and adaptable at work to meet competing priorities
• Able to respond and prioritise unpredictable health presentations and ensure effective interventions are actioned
• Able to work in unpleasant working conditions on occasions, i.e., bodily fluids.
• Enhanced knowledge of the multi-professional framework for advanced clinical practice (2017)

Knowledge

• Enhanced knowledge relevant to the specialty area
• Knowledge of Quality Improvement methodologies and experience of successful delivery in practice
• Knowledge of leadership strategies, personal leadership and how to lead successful change in an organisation
• Knowledge of teaching and learning styles
• Safeguarding Children and Vulnerable Adults
• Advanced knowledge of government strategies and policies relating to service and clinical leadership role
• Working knowledge of safety and governance frameworks and standards (including confidentiality/freedom of information/Caldicott regulations/CQC essential standards)
• Working knowledge of nursing, AHP and medical professional issues and developments

Values

• Ability to demonstrate the organisational values and behaviours of The Christie NHS Foundation Trust

The closing date for this post may be extended if there are insufficient applicants or brought forward if there is a high volume of applicants.

Application Information - If you have not heard from us within four weeks of the closing date, I regret that on this occasion your application will have been unsuccessful.

Sponsorship Information -We are an approved sponsoring organisation. Applications will be considered from applicants requiring sponsorship alongside all other applications.Please be aware, not all roles are eligible for sponsorship. You can review the list of eligible role and requirements on the government website.

Pre-Employment Checks - To confirm your suitability for the role, we will carry out pre-employment checks in line with NHS Employment Check Standards . These include:

• Identity verification
• Right to work check
• Disclosure and barring service (DBS)/Criminal record check (dependent on role, payment of this will be the applicants responsibility)
• Professional registration and/or qualification check
• Occupational health assessment
• Employment history and reference validation

All applicants external to The Christie NHS Foundation Trust will be required to provide their HMRC employment history to cover the most recent three years employment. This information will used to validate employment history andreferences.

If you require sponsorship, we will assess your eligibility based on current government guidance. If the role is not eligible and you cannot demonstrate your right to work, your conditional offer may be withdrawn.

If You're Offered the Role - you will be agreeing to The Christie NHS Foundation Trust transferring the information contained in this application to its preferred applicant management system. If you are offered a job information will also be transferred into the national NHS Electronic Staff Records system. Please note, all communication regarding your application will be made via email, please ensure you check your junk/spam folders as emails are sometimes filtered there.

The Inter-Authority Transfer (IAT) process is a critical and beneficial component of ESR and will form part of the recruitment process. In the event that you are successful following interview your previous NHS employment data, if applicable will be transferred from your current / most recent employer.

This data will be used within the IAT system.

We are an approved sponsoring organisation. Applications will be considered from applicants requiring sponsorship alongside all other applications.Please be aware, not all roles are eligible for sponsorship. You can review the list of eligible role and requirements on the government website.

No Smoking Policy -

You should be aware the Trust operates a No Smoking Policy and therefore employees are not permitted to smoke at work.

Additional Information - We want to ensure that everyone who works at the Christie or uses our services is welcomed, valued and treated with dignity and respect. The Christie values diversity and is committed to ensuring equal opportunities for all and fair representation across the organisation at all levels. In support of these commitments, we particularly welcome applications from Black, Asian and other ethnic minority people and people with disabilities for this post. Appointment will be only on merit.

We are committed to creating a balanced and diverse workforce. As such we welcome and encourage applications from people of all backgrounds. Together we will foster inclusion and tackle inequity and health inequalities in cancer care.

As users of the disability confident scheme, we guarantee to interview all disabled applicants who meet the minimum criteria for the vacancy.

The Christie NHS Foundation Trust is committed to the highest standards of ethical conduct and integrity in all our activities. We have a zero-tolerance approach to modern slavery in any of its forms, including slavery, servitude, forced or compulsory labour, and human trafficking. We are fully committed to acting ethically and with transparency in all our business dealings and relationships, and to implementing and enforcing effective systems and controls to ensure modern slavery is not taking place anywhere in our organisation or supply chains.

Employer certification / accreditation badges

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.