Physician Associate
Employer Novum health Partnership Location London Salary Depending on experience Closing date 9 Feb 2024
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Profession Contract Type Hours You need to or to save a job. A full time Physician Associate post is now open at Novum Health Partnership. We were for many years the only practice in Lewisham to train and develop a team of Physician Associates so we have a lot of experience of working with PAs. We now employ a team of 5 PAs. Novum is a busy large inner city practice over two sites - one in Rushey Green and the other on Baring Road. We have 5 partners, 5 salaried GPs, a large team of nurses including Nurse practitioners, Nurse associates and Health Care Assistants. The practice serves a deprived population specialising particularly in the vulnerable including homeless patients, substance misuse and asylum seekers. We have many years experience in training PAs, providing weekly tutorials and always having a duty GP as supervisor as well as other GPs who are on duty. Newly qualified PAs are welcome to apply and training is provided for 1 year.
Main duties of the job
Physician Associates are fully integrated into our clinician team. They will have standard clinical sessions where undifferentiated patients are booked in as a face to face appointment or a telephone appointment.Debriefing after each session, or as required for the patient case, is always available with the supervising GP. At Novum Health Partnership we also have a clinical team triaging patient requests which comes in through the day, this is through a system called ChatDoc where patients send a message (usually via WhatsApp) to the surgery and the clinical team processes the query and either resolves the query or decides what type of appointment is required for the patient. The Physician Associate will also be part of this ChatDoc team working with 2 GPs and reception staff on the team. There will be clinical administration tasks which involves seeing laboratory results and acting on them, viewing clinical documents, doing reports, sharing in daily clinical administrative queries. With experienced PAs, you may be given an area of special interest to develop, for example, diabetes, hypertension or mental health.
About us
Novum Health Partnership is a large inner city practice over 2 sites and we have 22,000 patients who are very multi-ethnic. Baring Road is more affluent and has an older population than Rushey Green. Your time will be split between both sites. We specialise in vulnerable patients such as the homeless as well as gynaecology and minor surgery.
The team is large and well organised. There are regular team meetings, weekly clinical meetings, weekly tutorials for PAs, monthly practice meetings. There is also a clinical Whatsapp group for any queries. There is a large administrative team to support clinicians.
Novum is a training and teaching practice and staff are given every opportunity to develop.
Job description
Job responsibilities
Job Title
Physician Associate
Reports to
Partners Professionally
Practice Manager - Managerially
Responsible for
N/A
Hours of Operation
As per contract
Job Purpose
To deliver a high standard of patient care as Physician associate (PA) in general practice, using advanced autonomous clinical skills, and a broad and in-depth theoretical knowledge base, but always under the supervision of a GP.
JOB SUMMARY
As a Physician associate you will be acting within your professional boundaries, will provide care for the presenting patient from initial history taking, clinical assessment, diagnosis, treatment and evaluation of their care, under the supervision of a GP. You will demonstrate safe, clinical decision-making and expert care for patients within the general practice, in consultation with the duty GP. You will work collaboratively with the multi-disciplinary general practice team to meet the needs of patients, supporting the delivery of policy and procedures. In order to work at this level, you will follow the Matrix of Core Clinical Conditions by system theme as provided by the Faculty of Physician Associates in the Royal College of Physicians, and be registered in the same Faculty. You will follow recommended annual appraisals and continuing professional development as set out by the Faculty.
1. SCOPE OF THE ROLE
1. To deliver a high standard of patient care as Physician associate (PA) in general practice, using advanced autonomous clinical skills, and a broad and in-depth theoretical knowledge base, but always under the supervision of a GP.
2. To manage a clinical caseload, dealing with presenting patients needs in a primary care setting
3. To ensure the highest standards of care are provided for the patients
4. To provide clinical leadership where appropriate within the practice.
2. JOB DIMENSIONS
5. To manage own clinical workload in general practice responding effectively to patient need and ensuring patient choice and ease of access to services.
6. To be familiar with and use referral pathways to local acute NHS Trust services and other community based services.
7. To support other members of the team in developing and maintaining clinical skills appropriate to your role and expertise.
3. PRIMARY DUTIES & AREAS OF RESPONSIBILITY
3a. CLINICAL ROLE:
The post-holder will :
8. Work as part of the patient triage team to manage patient queries and decide on the most suitable outcomes.
9. Have appointments to consult with patients, either face to face or over the telephone, to assess their needs and provide appropriate care by making use of history taking skills, physical examination, problem solving, ordering investigations and coming up with a management plan.
10. Make professional decisions under the supervision of a GP.
11. Instigate necessary invasive and non-invasive diagnostic tests or investigations and interpret findings/reports
12. Provide home visits as appropriate under the supervision of a GP.
13. View and action clinical laboratory results and clinical letters and work through duty clinical administration including prescription queries.
General
14. Provide safe, evidence-based, cost-effective, individualised patient care
15. Offer a holistic service to patients and their families, developing where appropriate an on-going plan of care/support, with an emphasis on prevention and self-care
16. Promote health and well-being through the use of health promotion, health education, screening and therapeutic communication skills
17. Refer patients directly to other services/agencies as appropriate
18. Work with nursing, medical and health care assistant colleagues to ensure that National Service Frameworks are being delivered
19. Work with the mutli-disciplinary team within the Practice, and across the wider neighbourhood cluster as necessary, to promote integrated and seamless pathways of care
20. Contribute to the practice achieving its quality targets to sustain the high standards of patient care and service delivery
Participate in identification of community health needs and develop patient/family-centred strategies to address them
21. Be aware of and contribute as appropriate to planning and delivery of practice-based commissioning
22. Participate in supervision with the designated GP.
3b TEACHING ROLE:
The post-holder will :
23. Promote a learning environment for patients, nurses and other health professionals.
24. Contribute to the planning and implementation of the teaching for existing staff, such as medical students, nursing students, GP registrars, Health Care Assistants, visiting overseas doctor within the Practice.
3c. PROFESSIONAL ROLE :
The post-holder will :
25. Promote evidence-based practice through the use of the latest research-based guidelines and the development of practice-based research.
26. Monitor the effectiveness of their own clinical practice through the quality assurance strategies such as the use of audit and peer review
27. Maintain their professional registration
28. Participate in continuing professional development opportunities to ensure that up-to-date evidence-based knowledge and competence in all aspects of the role is maintained
29. Work within the latest Code of Professional Conduct
30. Record accurate consultation data in patients records in accordance with guidance and other pertinent standards
31. Keep up to date with pertinent health-related policy and work with the practice team to consider the impact and strategies for implementation
32. Work collaboratively with colleagues within and external to the practice.
33. Demonstrate leadership
34. Pro-actively promote the role of the PA within the Practice, and externally to key stakeholders and agencies
3d. ADDITIONAL FUNCTIONS:
The post-holder will :
Encourage and develop teamwork within the practice.
Participate in multi-disciplinary protocol and Patient Group Directions development
Identify appropriate opportunities to delegate both clinical and administrative tasks to more junior staff.
Help the practice operate in a cost-effective manner.
Participate in practice meetings reporting progress as required.
Participate in audits and inspections as appropriate.
Work closely with the doctors and administrative managers in the setting up and/or improving of practice systems for monitoring/measuring performance against Clinical Governance and Quality Indicator targets.
Ensure that all Practice Policys are fully implemented
HEALTH AND SAFETY RISK MANAGEMENT
35. The post-holder must comply at all times with the Practices Health and Safety policies, in particular by following agreed safe working procedures and reporting incidents using the organisations Incident Reporting System.
36. The post-holder will comply with the Data Protection Act (1984) and the Access to Health Records Act (1990).
EQUALITY AND DIVERSITY
37. The post-holder must co-operate with all policies and procedures designed to ensure equality of employment. Co-workers, patients and visitors must be treated equally irrespective of gender, ethnic origin, age, disability, sexual orientation, religion etc.
38. The post-holder should respect patient confidentiality at all times and not divulge patient information unless sanctioned by the requirements of the role.
COMMUNICATION AND WORKING RELATIONSHIPS
39. The post-holder will establish and maintain effective communication pathways with all staff of the practice and visiting clinical team members such as district nurses, modern matrons, health visitors etc.
JOB DESCRIPTION AGREEMENT
This job description is intended to provide an outline of the key tasks and responsibilities only. There may be other duties required of the post-holder commensurate with the position. This description will be open to regular review and may be amended to take into account development within the Practice. All members of staff should be prepared to take on additional duties or relinquish existing duties in order to maintain the efficient running of the Practice.
Person Specification
Qualifications
Essential
40. Qualified as Physician Associate in the National Examinations and registered in the Faculty of Physician Associates.
Experience
Desirable
41. Primary Care experience.
Employer details
Employer name
Novum health Partnership
Address
The Primary Care Centre
Hawstead Road
London
SE6 4JH