Physician Associate

You will be working as a Physician Associate within our Adult Community Mental Health Services in the East of Hertfordshire, supporting our continuing journey to deliver our CQC outstanding services that remain accredited with the Royal College of Psychiatrists. In this post, you will be joining our welcoming team in Cheshunt in the South East of Hertfordshire where there are good travel links with London. This post provides good opportunity to develop your physician associate career working collaboratively within our Adult Mental Health Service to provide holistic, clinical care., In this role you will complement the work of our psychiatric services by:

• supporting physical examination including annual physical health checks for service users with severe mental illness
• supporting diagnosis
• supporting the management of service users with co existing long term conditions such as diabetes
• overseeing the mental health care of service users living in residential care
• analyse test results
• develop care management plans
• health promotion, Physician Associate roles are likely to include, but not be limited to the following:
• Practice under the supervision of a Consultant Psychiatrist
• Conduct initial psychiatric assessments, take patient histories and perform
physical examinations
• Establish differential diagnosis, making appropriate treatment plans under
supervision of the Consultant Psychiatrist
• Participate in multidisciplinary team meetings, handovers and other relevant
clinical meetings
• Treat patient and their family members using a high degree of empathy and
advanced communication skills
• Respond in a timely way to requests to assess or review patient's physical and /
or mental health
• Record clinical notes about patient contacts and provide advice to staff on further
management / investigations / interventions
• Review and summarise patient notes for the purposes of contributing to discharge
summaries and reports.
• Undertake assessment and assistance to community staff in the event of medical
emergencies
• Work collaboratively with the relevant team i.e. Psychiatrists, Junior Doctors,
Senior Nurses, Administrators, Nursing Staff, Social Workers, Support Workers, Occupational Therapists, Psychologists to ensure good working relationships
• Liaise with primary care and relevant secondary health care providers relating to
a patient's care or treatment
• Liaise with relevant community teams about a patient's on-going care and
treatment needs


• Post Graduate Diploma in Physician Associate Studies or equivalent
• BA/BSc Degree in relevant subject
• Membership of UKAPA
• Evidence of ongoing CPD, Experience of working as a trainee Physician Associate
• Demonstratable experience of organising and prioritising own workload
Desirable criteria
• Experience of working within a Mental Health setting
• An understanding of the current NHS environment, particularly in relation to reforms, legislation and issues, You must have appropriate UK professional registration.
  
  Hertfordshire Partnership University NHS Foundation Trust (HPFT) is an outstanding organisation with ambitions to match. We are one of just five mental health trusts to achieve an overall rating of 'Outstanding' from the Care Quality Commission, and our aim is to be the leading provider of mental health and specialist learning disability services in the country.
Our family of over 3500 members of staff provide health and social care for over 400,000 people with mental ill health, physical ill health and learning disabilities across Hertfordshire, Buckinghamshire, and Norfolk, delivering these services within the community and several inpatient settings. We also deliver a range of nationally commissioned specialist services including Tier 4 services for children and young people, perinatal services, plus medium and low secure learning disabilities services. The care we provide makes a fantastic difference to the lives of our service users, their families and carers - everything is underpinned by choice, independence and equality, with our Trust values embedded throughout: Our Trust values are: Welcoming. Kind. Positive. Respectful. Professional. These values are at the core of who we are, everything we do, and how we do it! Would you like to be part of the HPFT family? Would you like work with us to ensure our service users live the fullest lives possible they can? Would you like to be supported in your career to be the best that you can be?, Hertfordshire Partnership University NHS Foundation Trust (HPFT) is rated by the Care Quality Commission as an Outstanding provider of mental health and learning disability services. In 2021, we won the prestigious Health Service Journal award for Mental Health Trust of the Year, with the judges saying they were "blown away" by our people's achievements and that everything they saw "sings and hums". This year, our staff rated us the 4^th best mental health and learning disability trust to work for out of all 52 trusts in the country. Our staff tell us that they are proud to be part of the HPFT team, proud of the standard of care we provide and proud that service users are our top priority. Our people tell us they feel supported though a great development, wellbeing and work-life balance offer and a highly compassionate, values-driven culture. We are equally proud of our staff, who live our values of being welcoming, kind, positive, respectful and professional