Lead Nurse for Adult Outpatient Parenteral Antimicrobial Therapy

The pharmacy department is seeking to recruit a lead nurse to the Outpatient Parenteral Antimicrobial Therapy (OPAT) team. This is an exciting opportunity to join this well-established, successful team supporting the delivery of specialised nursing care to patients who require outpatient or domiciliary intravenous antimicrobial therapy. You will work collaboratively with the multi-disciplinary team in providing expert advice to ensure safe and effective administration and supply of intravenous antimicrobials to facilitate positive patient outcomes. You will assess, evaluate and actively support patients from referral to discharge from the service to reduce length of hospital stay, avoid admission and improve patient flow., · Provide strong clinical and operational leadership for the OPAT service to ensure the delivery of high standards of clinical practice and professional conduct in keeping with best practice evidence, CQC standards and organisational policy and procedures. · Be responsible for appropriate assessment of patients requiring OPAT following appropriate governance processes. · Ensure effective working relationships are achieved with all professional groups/partners involved in the OPAT patient pathway of care to achieve safe, personal and effective care for patients. · To facilitate admission avoidance and early supported discharge thus reducing the length of stay in hospital for patients receiving IV antimicrobial therapy with the support of microbiology. · Develop and maintain key performance indicators (KPI) for OPAT alongside the Lead Antimicrobial Pharmacist. · Be able to cannulate and trouble shoot any problems arising from peripheral or central venous access devices. · Monitor and evaluate clinical practice, initiate quality improvement programmes i.e. C-OPAT (complex oral therapy), IV to Oral Switch (IVOST) service, measuring outcomes, and audit service to support quality improvement and assurance. · Develop and continuously optimise the OPAT policy, standard operating procedures, and clinical governance arrangements. · Act as a role model for delivering the desired standards of clinical/nursing care and interventions.

You must be energetic, motivated, assertive and possess demonstrable leadership and management experience with highly developed communication and interpersonal abilities. Can work autonomously and confident to work under your own initiative but also work well within a small but dynamic team., You will need to be a motivated individual with excellent communication skills and the ability to work under pressure, maintaining a pivotal link between inpatient and domiciliary teams in order to provide excellent personal, safe and effective patient care,

• Registered Nurse
• Current professional registration with Nursing and midwifery
• Degree in nursing/health related subject or be working towards or equivalent
• Computer literacy
Desirable criteria
• Qualified Independent supplementary prescriber
• Teaching Qualification
• Leadership qualification, Post registration experience in at least 2 clinical specialities
• Experience in clinical nurse specialist role
• A working understanding of antimicrobial stewardship
• Experience of MDT working
• Experience of managing change
• Experience of developing and implementing policy and SOP
• Experience of supervisory management of team and delivery of training, Experience at Senior sister/charge nurse
• Independant supplementary prescibing, Proficient in admin of IV medicines and cannulation
• Good understanding of antimicrobials and antimicrobial stewardship
• Good understanding of OPAT service
• Excellent understanding of prevention of infection
• Ability to work in different clinical environments
• Computer literate
• Undersatnding of research and clinical trials, Ability to organise time
• Ability to work alone or be supportive team member
• Confident and articulate
• Able to work flexibly, You must have appropriate UK professional registration.
  
  At East Lancashire Hospitals NHS Trust our vision is to be widely recognised for providing safe, personal and effective care. We currently provide high quality services and treat over 600,000 people across East Lancashire and the surrounding area. We employ over 9,500 staff, many of whom are internationally renowned and have won awards for their work., Established in 2003 East Lancashire Hospitals NHS Trust (ELHT) is a large integrated health care organisation providing high quality acute secondary healthcare for the people of East Lancashire and Blackburn with Darwen. Our vision is to be recognised for providing safe, personal and effective care. We currently provide high quality services and treat over 700,000 patients a year from the most serious of emergencies to planned operations and procedures. We employ over 8,000 staff, many of whom are internationally renowned and have won awards for their work and achievements.
We are a large and forward-thinking department, always looking to develop new pathways to improve patient outcomes and experiences to ensure patients are discharged home safely. In June 2023 a new Trust wide electronic patient record and electronic prescribing and administration of medicines system was implemented, enabling the OPAT team to improve clinical screening and prescribing of appropriate antibiotics through the use of an electronic care plan. Over 120 patients are safely discharged on to the OPAT Service each year from the Medical, Surgical and Ambulatory care wards across the Trust. You may be interested to know that East Lancashire Hospitals provides onsite parking and is well connected to the motorway network, making it an easy commuting distance from Manchester and Liverpool, with many of our team hailing from these locations. The Lake District is a short drive away for leisure activities., The Trust is an equal opportunities employer, committed to improving the working lives of our staff and operates a 'Zero Tolerance' policy to aggression, violence, bullying and harassment. In addition, our aim is to help protect children and vulnerable adults by providing a first-class service to the recruitment of people into positions of trust. We aim to employ a workforce that reflects the diverse communities we serve. We welcome applications from everyone irrespective of ethnic origin, gender, age, gender identity, sexual orientation, religion, marital status, disability or social background. We especially welcome applications from members of our black, Asian and minority ethnic (BAME) communities, as we have identified that ELHT has an under-representation of BAME employees. Appointments will be made on merit.

It is important you are made aware of the following as regards your application to East Lancashire Hospitals NHS Trust
• Please note that the salary advertised is for full time hours. If this post is less than 37.5 hours per week, the salary will be pro-rata. For posts on Agenda for Change pay-scales, new entrants to the NHS will normally commence on the first pay point of the relevant band.
• This vacancy may close before the closing date if the recruiting manager deems sufficient applications have been received. Therefore it is advised to complete your application as early as possible to avoid disappointment.
• Please ensure you check the email account from which you apply regularly as we will use this to contact you regarding your application.
• Please note that shortlisting is completed anonymously with candidates being assessed against the essential criteria for the post. Therefore only applicants, who can clearly demonstrate how they meet our person specification criteria in their application, will be short-listed.
Disclosure and Barring Scheme (DBS) If the role you are applying for is identified as either controlled or regulated activity as defined in in the Safeguarding vulnerable Groups Act (2006) any offer of employment is provisional upon a satisfactory DBS check being obtained. The healthcare sector is exempted from the Rehabilitation of Offenders Act 1974. In line with other NHS organisations in the North West Region, the Trust is now passing the charge for undertaking a DBS check on to candidates in the event they are successfully appointed into the post for which they have applied. Candidates can choose whether to pay this over 1-3 months as a deduction from the monthly salary. However, if you are applying for a post as a BANK worker, the payment must be made in full at the time of employment checks. By applying for this vacancy you are agreeing to this undertaking in the event you are successfully appointed. The cost of an Enhanced Disclosure will be £42.90 and for a Standard Disclosure £22.90 which includes a small handling fee.