Kirklees Integrated Community Equipment Service (KICES) operates across the whole of Kirklees to provide items of community equipment, via our commissioned provider, to meet peoples assessed Health and Social Care needs and promote their independence.
We require an occupational therapist with robust clinical knowledge and competencies to be able to support the provision of this service.
The aim of the service is to enable people to live as independently as possible, in their chosen home, and enable health and social care services to function effectively and without delay. There is a focus on preventing service users from developing more complex needs reducing risk and supporting people to have the opportunity to retain some control over their lives.
Main duties of the job
The successful candidate will enable the delivery of the vision for KICES, using their clinical skill set and experience to support the effective provision of equipment to meet peoples needs. This will involve working closely with prescribers from hospital and community teams providing oversight of the appropriate use of the services resources and carrying out authorisation of equipment requests from a wide variety of Health and Social Care professionals. You will work closely with our provider, Medequip, to ensure an effective service is provided. The role will also involve carrying out reviews of equipment in service users own homes and other settings to support their ongoing needs when appropriate as well as supporting other prescribers to develop their competencies through the provision of training sessions.
This role involves working collaboratively with prescribers of equipment, from across the health and social care sectors, utilising your clinical reasoning to support them in identifying appropriate equipment solutions to meet individuals functional and physiological requirements. You will encourage a focus on prevention, early intervention and independence of service users, alongside support for higher level needs through provision of equipment, technology and adaptations.
You will liaise with the Contract Provider, equipment manufacturers, and prescribers regarding new products/developments to improve the service and enable positive clinical discussions, supporting prescribers to increase their knowledge of equipment solutions available. You will utilise robust clinical reasoning skills and knowledge of pathology to grant or refuse authorisations for specialist equipment and higher speed deliveries to ensure that the services resources are used most effectively and that prescribers are kept informed of the current budgetary situation.
You will utilise your in-depth clinical knowledge to undertake reviews of the most complex pieces of equipment and facilitate the recall of items no longer in use or no longer suitable to meet needs. You will work closely with the provider of the service to influence the running and development of it and ensure that it continues to operate in a way that the local health and social care system requires. You will act as a champion for KICES in decision making arenas and work with health and social care colleagues, partner agencies, independent private/voluntary sector providers and other departments in the Council to develop and ensure the implementation of the Assistive Technology Strategy.
Reporting to the KICES Contract Manager, you will ensure the service has modern up to date equipment available by conducting regular audits and assisting with classification and cataloguing to ensure accuracy of the information provided for prescribers. You will achieve value for money on equipment purchases through buying power and optimising the reuse of equipment, collection, and recycling, identifying areas where efficiencies can be made.
Service development will feature in your job so you will need to ensure systems are in place to identify and predict trends in service and assist in formulating service plans to monitor, evaluate, and improve service delivery. You will ensure good quality intelligence is available on trends and changing patterns of demands and usage of equipment so that informed decisions can be made about provision of equipment solutions.
You will facilitate effective communication channels with prescribers, taking on board their views and providing information and training regarding new equipment and procedures.
Qualifications
* Recognised professional qualification as an Occupational Therapist and registered under HCPC.
* Post qualification experience of assessing people in their own homes with regard to equipment or adaptations.
* Knowledge of specialist disability equipment, both standard stock and special order and the health and social care duties governing funding and provision.
* Ability to use IT systems and equipment for the recording and communication of information as well as interrogation of patient databases and spreadsheets.
* An understanding of the need to work within a defined budget and within this achieve the most cost effective solutions for people who use the service.
* Ability to facilitate training in the equipment field.
* Accepts a basic DBS check is required. Please note that a conviction may not exclude candidates from appointment but will be considered as part of the recruitment process.
* Travel is an essential part of this job and therefore it would be extremely difficult for you to do your job effectively if you did not use a car for all or most of the time. It is essential that you hold a full and valid driving licence, and it is expected that you will either use a council vehicle or your own car.
Disclosure and Barring Service Check
This post is subject to the Rehabilitation of Offenders Act (Exceptions Order) 1975 and as such it will be necessary for a submission for Disclosure to be made to the Disclosure and Barring Service (formerly known as CRB) to check for any previous criminal convictions.
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