Hours of work: 30 hours Monday to Friday
Responsible to: GP Partners (clinically)
Responsible to: Practice Manager (managerially)
Job summary
The post holder is responsible for ensuring the delivery of safe and effective nursing care to the whole practice population across both Dunster surgery and our branch surgery, Porlock. As nursing team lead, the post holder is accountable for the nursing service delivery. They will lead and manage all the nursing resource, working closely with the practice management and GPs to deliver the practice priorities.
Clinically, the focus of the role is the delivery of evidence-based care for patients with long-term conditions along with offering management and preventative nursing interventions to all of our patients. As an autonomous practitioner the nurse is responsible for the care delivered, demonstrating critical thinking and skills in clinical decision-making. They will work collaboratively with the whole general practice team to meet the needs of patients, supporting the delivery of policy and procedures, and providing leadership and direction for the nursing team.
Scope and Purpose of role
- To help develop the Nursing services offered by the Practice.
- To provide Clinical leadership within the Nursing Team
- To ensure the highest standards of care are provided for patients.
- To manage and develop a clinical, acute and chronic caseload, dealing with patients’ needs that present to the Nursing team in the primary care setting.
- Review medication for therapeutic effectiveness, appropriate to patients’ needs and in accordance with evidence-based practice and national and practice protocols.
- Prioritise health problems and intervene appropriately to assist the patient in complex, urgent or emergency situations, including initiation of effective emergency care.
- To deliver a high standard of patient care using specialist Practice Nursing skills.
Clinical Role
- Make autonomous decisions for which they are accountable and provide safe, evidence-based, cost effective and individualised patient care.
- Where necessary, evaluate patient test results in conjunction with the patient and their GP and ensure the appropriate course of treatment is initiated.
- Make appropriate referrals to other members of the primary, community and secondary care teams.
- Help the practice develop and deliver specialist primary care nurse led services including chronic disease management.
- Initiate the diagnosis for patients suspected of having chronic diseases e.g. Diabetes, COPD, asthma, and CVD, referring to other clinicians as appropriate
- Facilitate the provision of child and adult immunisations and vaccinations in accordance with the national and local immunisation programmes.
- Ensure the nursing team are competent in anaphylaxis and resuscitation techniques.
- Ensure safe storage, rotation and disposal of vaccines and drugs and that adequate stock levels are maintained.
- Be able to undertake procedures including venepuncture, BP management, urinalysis, peak flows, spirometry, FENO, pregnancy testing and wound management.
- Promote health and wellbeing, giving general education, advice on diet, contraception, smoking, chronic disease management, weight, exercise etc.
- Initiate and carry out programmes of health screening as agreed by the practice clinical teams.
- Enable the support and encouragement of individuals, families and groups to address issues which affect their health and social wellbeing.
- Where the post holder is an independent prescriber, ensure safe effective and appropriate prescribing as defined by current legislative framework and local and practice guidelines.
- Maintain accurate records according to NMC guidance.
- Ensure all data protection requirements are met by the nursing team when gathering, recording, and storing patient data.
Teaching and Mentoring Role
- Promote a learning environment for patients, nurses and other health professionals in the wider team.
- Assist with the planning, implementation and teaching for nursing students as well as qualified nurses and health care assistants.
- Act as mentor to nursing students, assessing competence against set standards as requested and if appropriately qualified.
- Disseminate learning and information to other team members in order to share good practice and inform others about current and future developments, e.g. courses and conferences
- Provide an educational role to colleagues, patients, carers and families in an environment that facilitates learning.
Professional Role
- Attend and contribute to relevant internal and external meetings as required including practice clinical meetings and nurse team meetings.
- Maintain a personal plan to keep up to date with current developments as well as identifying their own training needs and attend suitable courses as appropriate.
- Promote evidence-based practice through the use of the latest research-based guidelines.
- Monitor the effectiveness of own clinical practice through quality assurance strategies such as the use of peer audit and review.
- Maintain professional registration.
- Work within the NMC Code of Professional Conduct
- Work collaboratively with colleagues both internally and externally
- Proactively promote the role of specialist nursing expertise within the practice
Lead Nurse Role
- Demonstrate kind and compassionate leadership within the nursing team and the wider GP surgery team.
- Act as a role model.
- Support members of the nursing team to undertake mandatory and statutory training requirements.
- Provide clinical and educational advice to support the development of the team and the range of services provided.
- Facilitate/conduct nursing team appraisals.
- Responsible for nursing team meetings
Team working
- Understand own role and scope in the organisation and identify how this may develop over time.
- Work as an effective and responsible team member, supporting others and exploring the mechanisms to develop new ways of working.
- Delegate clearly and appropriately, adopting the principles of safe practice and assessment of competence of those taking on delegated duties.
- Ensure clear understanding and utilisation of referral mechanisms within the practice.
Management of risk
- Manage and assess risk within the areas of responsibility, ensuring adequate measures are in place to protect staff and patients.
- Monitor work areas and practices to ensure they are safe and free from hazards and conform to health, safety and security legislation, policies, procedures and guidelines.
- Ensure safe storage, rotation and disposal of vaccines and drugs.
- Apply infection control measures within the practice according to local and national guidelines.
Learning and development
- Assess own learning needs and undertake training as appropriate in accordance with the nursing team training plan agreed with GP and management team.
- Make effective use of learning opportunities within and outside the workplace, evaluating their effectiveness and feeding back relevant information.
- Disseminate learning and information to other team members in order to share good practice and inform others about current and future developments.
Equality & diversity
- Act as a role model in good practice relating to equality and diversity.
- Identify patterns of discrimination, take action to overcome this, and promote diversity and equality of opportunity.
- Enable others to promote equality and diversity in a non-discriminatory culture.
- Accept the rights of individuals to choose their care providers, participate in care and refuse care. Assist patients from marginalised groups to access quality care.