Community Podiatrist

North West Borough Healthcare NHS Foundation Trust; St Helens; On-site; GBP 38,000 - 48,000; Full time

Job summary

Mersey Care NHS Foundation Trust is seeking a Community Podiatrist to assess and plan podiatric care for patients with diverse needs, maintaining independence and mobility. You will work with a multidisciplinary team to deliver high-quality, patient-centered care in community settings.

Whether newly registered or experienced, you will develop your skills in a supportive environment. The role offers rotation into acute sectors and opportunities for career progression in advanced clinical and

Qualifications

• Degree or Diploma in Podiatric Medicine.
• HCPC registration is essential.
• POM-A / LA certificate is required.

Responsibilities

• Deliver podiatry care in clinical, domiciliary and residential settings.
• Assess and plan treatment with clear outcomes.
• Provide health education to patients and groups.
• Delegate tasks to podiatry assistants where appropriate.
• Maintain infection control and safe clinical practices.
• Work as part of a multidisciplinary team to ensure seamless care.

Skills

Excellent communication

IT skills

Organisational/time management

Problem solving

Risk assessment

Reflective practice

Education

Degree / Diploma in Podiatric Medicine

Job description

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 ethnically diverse, 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.

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Job overview

Are you passionate about improving foot health and enhancing quality of life? Join our podiatry team and make a real difference to the lives of patients every day!

As a Community Podiatrist, you will assess and provide clearly planned podiatric care packages to patients with a variety of care needs, with the aim of maintaining independence and mobility. You will work alongside a multi-disciplinary team, collaborating with other healthcare professionals to deliver high quality, patient centred care.

Whether you're a newly registered Podiatrist or experienced practitioner, this is a fantastic opportunity to develop your skills in a supportive and forward thinking environment.

Our offer to you:

1. Rotation into the acute sector as an observer in departments such as vascular and orthopaedics.
2. Encouragement and support with your career progression into advanced clinical roles and leadership roles

Our values are at the heart of everything we do, they are:

1. Continuous improvement
2. Accountability
3. Respect
4. Enthusiasm
5. Support

If you share our values and want to be part of a team that makes a real difference, we want to hear from you.

Main duties of the job

You will work as part of a highly motivated team providing a high standard of clinical care in a variety of community settings, ensuring the provision of seamless care between primary and secondary care.

You will provide treatment for patients to maintain tissue viability and relieve pain; especially patients who require specialist care packages because they are at special risk due to diabetes, rheumatoid arthritis and peripheral vascular disease.

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.

Flexible working requests will be considered for all roles.

Detailed job description and main responsibilities

Clinical

1. Delivery of podiatry in clinical, domiciliary and residential home settings, usually working in isolation, always as an autonomous practitioner.
2. Assessment and treatment of existing patients in line with departmental protocols using judgements involving complex facts about the patient's medical conditions, current medication and podiatric needs.
3. Develop treatment plans with expected outcomes and agree with patient how these outcomes may be best achieved. Provide advice to patients on foot health matters.
4. Employ stringent control of cross infection and decontamination measures during daily exposure to infectious material i.e., wound/ulcer dressings, blood, pus or body fluid, unkempt dirty feet, and body and when working in less than hygienic conditions in domiciliary situations.
5. Follow standard operating procedures for podiatry instrument use
6. Assess for nail surgery and undertake nail surgery, supervised by a senior podiatrist. Be responsible for the administration of local analgesia, observation of the patient for adverse reaction and the administration of adrenalin in the event of the patient suffering anaphylactic shock.
7. Assess for orthotics, make and provide chair-side devices, prescribe bespoke orthotics and liaise with appropriate specialist.
8. Have the capability to move and handle patients who may be immobile, wheelchair or bed bound.
9. Work in patient's homes/residential homes in confined spaces, with poor lighting, inadequate seating, sitting in a restricted position/ over patient's bed working from a domiciliary bag. Treatment position may be restricted by non-compliance from the patients due to physical, mental or emotional debility.
10. Provide health education advice including one to one advice and education to groups of peers, professionals and patients.
11. Delegate appropriate patients to the care of podiatry assistants.

Leadership

1. Delegate suitable patients to podiatry assistants.

Person specification

Qualifications

Essential criteria

• Degree / Diploma in Podiatric Medicine
• Registered with the HCPC
• POM-A / LA certificate

Experience

Essential criteria

• Experience of working with patients and carers in a variety of settings / situations
• Evidence of applying a person-centred approach to care

Skills

Essential criteria

• Excellent communication skills (written & verbal)
• Ability to utilise assessment skills and instrumentation effectively and safely
• Good organisational/time management skills
• Ability to problem solve
• Ability to identify risk and minimise risk effectively
• Ability to reflect on experience and identify lessons learnt
• IT skills appropriate to role

Knowledge

Essential criteria

• Knowledge of local and national, professional policies/guidance
• Knowledge of own scope of practice and that of others
• Ability to apply podiatry knowledge within patient management
• The ability to demonstrate the use of evidence-based practice

Values

Essential criteria

• Continuous improvement - committed to making improvements to our services for the benefit of all
• Accountability - taking ownership to anticipate, develop and deliver high quality care
• Respect - how we treat others in an inclusive and supportive way
• Enthusiasm - demonstrate our passion and pride for what we do and how we do it
• Support - actively supporting others with compassion and courage

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