Clinical Practitioner, Band 6

Virtual wards support patients, who would otherwise be in hospital, to get the acute care, remote monitoring, and treatment they need in their own home, including care homes. Patients with a range of acute conditions will be supported to prevent unnecessary admissions and to reduce length of stay where the patient has been identified in the hospital, whilst maintaining the same level of support and care the person would have received in an acute bed.

The role of the Clinical Practitioner is dynamic, and the post holder will be highly proactive in continually developing and embedding the role beyond the traditional scope of non-medical practice, with the rest of the team. The post holder will work within locally and nationally agreed protocols and guidelines to provide assessment, investigation, diagnosis, evaluation, and treatment planning, supporting admission avoidance and facilitation of early hospital discharge for patients referred to our Virtual Ward Hub and supporting patients who require acute level care delivered within their own home environment.

Under the direction of the Virtual Ward Team leads you will assess patients on the virtual ward, implement a management plan, whilst considering your own clinical confidence and competence.

You will be part of the Virtual Ward service in a Multi-Professional team which provides high standards of clinical judgement, intervention and decision making, accessing the range of Community services.

Main duties of the job

- Demonstrate high level of judgmental/analytical skills when interpreting and performing patient assessments and care planning via the telephone and face to face.

- Maintain accurate and up to date patient care records, maintaining patient confidentiality, and statistical records as required by the service. Work with other professionals to promote multidisciplinary / multiagency working.

- Undertake clinical skills e.g Phlebotomy, ECG's, Physical Observations and monitoring.

-To attend and contribute to virtual ward MDT

- To work closely with the consultant clinical lead for virtual wards, community teams, and specialty teams in the acute to develop and support a range of virtual ward pathways.

- Working autonomously, assessing individual patient needs, initiating investigations, determining a differential diagnosis, and initiating appropriate, evidence-based treatment and care within scope of practice.

- Act as a resource for all members of the multi-disciplinary team, providing advice in aspects of patient management.

- Working with our clinical leads and integrated Multidisciplinary teams across organisations to develop the model for NHS@Home virtual ward universal personalised care within the Virtual Wards.

- Incorporating digital capabilities with the efficient use of technology to support clinical decision making

The Virtual Ward programme is a truly whole system initiative.

This role will be employed by the acute trust with an honorary contract with our community provider GHC. We are fortunate that Gloucestershire has a single acute trust, and single community provider, which provides excellent conditions for a cross- system roles such as this. Our digital partner Doccla has a wide range of Virtual Ward experience from other systems - and we are leading the way with two way integration into our electronic patient records.

With this being a new service model, there is an exciting opportunity for the successful candidate to help shape and develop the service and team to meet the needs of patients at home. In return, the opportunity to work alongside and across providers is an exciting prospect for clinicians who really believe in integrated models of care. You will be supported by clinical leads, operational leads and transformation leads within both organisations and closely working with the ICB to develop and evaluate the model.

Gloucestershire Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust operates hospitals on our two main sites in Cheltenham and Gloucester, and we're one of the largest NHS Trusts in the country. We have a workforce of 8,000+ staff across both sites.