Job overview
Please note: at this stage, the role is open only to colleagues currently employed within Kent and Medway NHS Trusts, the Kent and Medway Integrated Care Board (ICB) and Medway Community Healthcare. Nursing vacancies are also open to Student Nurses and Newly Qualified Nurses.
We are seeking an exceptional Consultant Advanced Clinical Practitioner in Frailty to join our West Kent Home Treatment Service (HTS) and provide senior clinical leadership across our Frailty Virtual Ward and Urgent Community Response pathways. You will work alongside existing Consultant Practitioners as a senior clinical decision maker, supporting safe, high‑quality care seven days a week.
Our mission is simple: “We ask people living with frailty what they want from healthcare and strive to deliver it.” You will play a central role in achieving this by leading a service that provides rapid assessment, diagnostics and treatment for people with complex needs, long‑term conditions and frailty. The HTS and UCR teams operate across multiple bases in East and West Kent, delivering urgent assessments within two hours or the same day, helping to prevent avoidable hospital admissions and supporting people to remain safely at home.
This is an exciting time to join us as the service expands, offering the opportunity to shape frailty care across West Kent and influence system‑wide improvement.
Main duties of the job
As a Consultant ACP in Frailty, you will be a recognised clinical expert, practising at an advanced level and managing patients with undifferentiated and complex presentations from admission to discharge. You will exercise high levels of clinical judgement, autonomy and decision‑making, providing senior oversight across the service.
You will deliver the four pillars of Consultant‑level practice:
• Expert clinical practice – ensuring excellence in frailty assessment and management
• Strategic leadership – offering expert advice to colleagues, patients and carers
• Learning and development – providing education, supervision and training across the system
• Research and innovation – leading service development, evaluation, audit and quality improvement
You will work closely with the Integrated Care Management MDT and wider system partners to deliver proactive, person‑centred care. This role offers the opportunity to influence service design, drive innovation and improve outcomes for people living with frailty across West Kent.
Working for our organisation
Rated ‘outstanding’ by the CQC, we’ve got a passion for delivering high standards of patient care and excellent services to improve the health of our communities. To do this we need outstanding people who share our values compassionate Aspirational Responsive Excellent
We know a commitment to equity, diversity and inclusion leads to better patient care and a happier workforce. We pride ourselves in being diverse and welcome applications from people with varied backgrounds, perspectives and experiences
We ask for information about your protected characteristics on our application forms. This isn’t visible to anyone involved with shortlisting or interviewing you, except when you choose to be considered under the guaranteed interview scheme due to disability. Short listers will see two ticks alongside your application to ensure they apply the principles of the scheme to your submission
The data we collect helps us to ensure we are attracting diversity in our applicants, that all our colleagues have equitable access to career opportunities and supports us on our journey to being a Great Place to Work
As a flexible working friendly organisation, we want you to be able to work in a way that is best for us, for our patients and for you. Talk to us about a flexible working arrangement that won’t involve sacrificing time for personal interests or family commitments. We’ll support you to work flexibly in a way that will suits us both
See where you can go with KCHFT
Detailed job description and main responsibilities
As a community Trust, many of our roles require individuals to be able to drive to perform their duties. Where driving is a requirement of the role, you will be asked to confirm that you hold a full UK driving licence or a full driving licence issued by an EU country (not exchanged from a non-EU country) to proceed with your application. We are committed to supporting candidates with disabilities into employment. If you are unable to drive due to a disability, please contact the Recruitment Team via quoting the vacancy reference number, so we can support you further.
The job description and person specification gives you all the information you need about this role. Please look carefully at the criteria in the person specification and tell us what you have done that shows you meet this in your application. If you need an application form in an alternative format please let our recruitment team know. All information you supply on your application should, to the best of your knowledge, be true and accurate.
Still have questions? The recruiting manager would love to hear from you, their contact details can be found in the job advert.
We can get a lot of applications for some roles so to be in with the best chance of being shortlisted please make sure you apply as soon as possible. A vacancy may close early if there is a lot of interest in the job.
At KCHFT we strongly encourage colleagues in clinical and non-clinical roles who have direct or social contact with patients to be fully vaccinated. In this way we will be doing all we can to ensure your safety and that of your colleagues and the patients we serve.
Find out more about the community difference here.
Good luck! We can’t wait to meet you and welcome you to #teamKCHFT, #cometocommunity.
Person specification
Qualifications
Essential criteria
1. First level Registration with NMC, HPCP or GPHC
2. Educated to Master’s level or higher degree
3. MSc/ Experience at band 8a or above
4. Teaching qualification
5. Research qualification
6. Leadership
7. Independent non-medical prescribing
Desirable criteria
8. Psychology or counselling experience and training/ education
Experience
Essential criteria
9. Extensive clinical experience in the care and treatment of people with frailty (including long term conditions and dementia care experience)
10. Advanced skills in history taking and physical assessment of frail people
11. Experience of advanced specialist interventions in the assessment and management of older patients
12. Experience of teaching and education provision
13. Extensive experience in report writing
14. Experience of planning, implementation and delivery of educational programmes relating to long-term conditions
15. Experience of working across organisational boundaries with partners (commissioning, social care and education providers)
16. Advanced IT skills
17. Experience with evidence of audit, research and innovation applied in practice
18. Experience of strategy development and implementation
Knowledge
Essential criteria
19. Advanced understanding of long-term conditions and application to older people
20. Advanced knowledge of clinical governance
21. Advanced knowledge of change management
22. Advanced knowledge of managing complex patient information and situations
Skills and abilities
Essential criteria
23. Demonstrate a high level of competence and excellence in practice
24. High level competence in strategic planning
25. Advanced skills in writing reports
26. Expert skills in developing and delivering educational material
Employer certification / accreditation badges