Job summary
A vacancy has now become available within our extremely busy Discharge Unit at Portsmouth Hospitals University NHS Trust- the Queen Alexandra Hospital.
We are a highly motivated team facilitating patient flow throughout the hospital and safe discharges to other hospitals and home.
Are you motivated and passionate to make a real difference to every patient we would love to hear from you!
Main duties of the job
1. Ensuring high quality nursing care is coordinated and delivered using a family focused model of practice.
2. Work as part of a cohesive multidisciplinary team ensuring patient care is delivered smoothly and efficiently.
3. The expectations within this job description will be achieved through hands-on clinical practice, education and training and research.
About us
Here at Portsmouth Hospitals University NHS Trust, we are proud to provide expert, compassionate care for our local population. We are ranked as the third in the country for research, embedding education and training across the organisation. Our main hub is the Queen Alexandra Hospital, which is one of the largest hospitals on the south coast employing over 8,700 staff.
Our patients come from all walks of life and so do we. We hire great people from a wide variety of backgrounds because it makes our hospital stronger. If you share our values and our enthusiasm for getting it right for patients, colleagues, and our community, you will find a home at Portsmouth Hospitals University NHS Trust.
Job description
Job responsibilities
Clinical/Professional
4. Promote and set high standards of nursing care and maintain the delivery of quality care within the trust policies, protocols and guidelines.
5. Provide and deliver a high standard of evidence based nursing care through the assessment, planning, and evaluating of individual patients' needs based on evidence. Initiate and coordinate care in the clinical area for a specified group of patients.
6. Recognise and respond to change in a patient status undertaking first line interventions within scope of practice and refer on to the appropriate clinician as required.
7. Actively promote safe and effective working practices to prevent harm to the patients within your care and take part in safety audits to maintain high quality standards.
8. Communicating and working with the multidisciplinary team to improve quality of care, and informed clinical decisions. Promote innovation and share any new ideas to improve patient care.
9. Participate in the allocation of workload and ensure efficient bed management and effective patient flow.
10. Coordinate care for a clinical area once deemed competent to do so.
11. Liaise, report and document any relevant nursing/patient needs with other health care professionals with ongoing responsibility for patient care, communicating changes as they occur.
12. Ensuring that accurate and timely patient records are maintained.
13. Implement the Trust 'values and beliefs' ensuring they are embedded into everyday practice and evaluate their impact on the patients' experience.
14. Engage and interact with carers/family encouraging them to be actively involved in patient's care planning as outline in the ward/unit philosophy.
15. Ensure concerns raised by patients and their families are escalated and dealt with in an open, honest and transparent way, in line with Trust policies, procedures and Duty of Candour legislation.
16. Maintain and continually develop in-depth specialist knowledge of nursing practice relevant to the individual clinical area.
17. Achieve competence in the use of medical devices/equipment by accessing training and maintaining these.
18. Promote health education within the clinical area and advise patient, family, and others in health promotion issues, making every contact count. Promote the health and wellbeing of staff, patients and their carers.
Management/Leadership
19. Report, escalate and manage patient safety events and clinical emergencies as detailed in Trust-wide and local protocols and procedures.
20. Be proactive in the prevention and management of complaints (formal and those via Patient Advice and Liaison Service) and when they occur investigate, and respond in a timely manner.
21. In conjunction with other team members, participate in quality monitoring and improvements via involvement in the Portsmouth Bundle.
22. Manage the discharge and transfer of patients by using the SAFER discharge bundle and other discharge policies to ensure a seamless transition from hospital to home, or other community care services.
23. Comply and promote compliance with Trust policies and guidelines Health and Safety, Clinical Risk and Infection Control.
24. Take an appropriate action to address unexpected changes and situations, informing the Senior Sister/Charge Nurse or other if unable to resolve.
25. Contribute to the clinical area non-pay budgets to ensure good housekeeping and economic use of resources.
26. Delegate duties and tasks to un-registered staff, students/trainees and other staff as appropriate. Bands 1 to 4 as appropriate.
27. Demonstrate an awareness of and compliance with health and safety regulations/procedures that apply to staff, patients, and visitors within Trust premises.
28. Work closely with partners Equans, resolving any issues regarding cleanliness, provision of food and maintenance of the environment. Ensure staff are aware how to escalate when issues cannot be resolved.
Research and Education
Research
29. Contribute to a research culture within the nursing team to identify current knowledge and deliver evidence based care.
30. Support local research teams, contribute to local department multidisciplinary audits.
31. Liaise with the relevant research nurse to ensure patients are identified to take part in clinical research duties and research is delivered safely on the ward.
32. Embed in the team culture the concept of recruitment to clinical trials which is a national performance indicator.
Education
33. Ensure staff under the post holder's leadership has an annual personal development review and set achievable objectives. Feed agreed development opportunities into the department training plan.
34. Create a culture for learning and development that will sustain person-centred safe and effective care. Encourage team openness so than an evidence based approach is utilised and applied to nursing care.
35. Supervise, assess, mentor student nurses and support all Health Care Professionals, junior staff including bank and agency staff in an associate/buddy role until undertaking a qualified mentor role following recognised training.
36. Encourage a culture where students receive quality placements supported by mentorship and teaching from the multi-professional team.
37. With the Senior Sister/Charge Nurse, ensure student mentors and sign off mentors within the clinical area are up-to-date with NMC standards, including annual updates and undertaking triennial reviews.
38. Responsible for ensuring that ward/department staff undertake essential training.
39. Ensure there are processes in place for the orientation of new/temp staff and preceptorship for junior nurses.
Communication and Working Relations
40. Communicate highly sensitive and complex information with empathy, ensuring that information is understood.
41. Communicating and cooperating with other wards and departments, promoting and maintaining good working relationships with own clinical area and across the organisation, giving accurate information as required and keeping everyone informed of any untoward incidents.
42. Deal with interpersonal conflict and escalate to senior nurse to assist with resolution of any adverse situation/incidents. Comply and promote compliance to Trust policies Harassment and Bullying.
43. Work collaboratively within a multi-disciplinary team and participate in the induction of temporary staff to ward policies and routine.
44. Communicate complex/sensitive information with empathy and respect ensuring understanding.
Working Conditions and Effort
45. May be frequently exposed to distressing circumstances if working with patients who are terminally ill and their families and/or exposed to other conditions.
46. Occasional/frequent exposure to unpleasant or highly unpleasant working conditions bodily fluids, smells etc.
Person Specification
Qualifications
Essential
47. Current RN +- RN, registration with NMC and any other relevant post registration qualifications
48. BSc Degree in relevant field.
Experience
Essential
49. Evidence of recent CPD Managing resources and contributing to departmental budget
50. Evidence of developing policy, guidelines and managing resources
51. An awareness of research and evidence-based practice relevant to clinical area.
Desirable
52. Computer literate, knowledge of patient administration system
Skills and Knowledge
Essential
53. Clinically competent at Band 5.
54. Good communication and interpersonal skills
55. Teaching and mentoring skills
56. Team building skills
57. Ability to prioritise workload, instruct and direct others
58. Organisational skills and able to work as part of a team
59. Able to support development of others
60. Articulate and knowledgeable of current professional nursing issues
61. Health promotion
62. Advocacy skills
63. Strong customer service skills
Desirable
64. Ability to adapt to change within working situation
65. Intravenous Therapy Skills
66. Mentors Course