Job description

Job responsibilities

Key responsibilities

1. Take referrals from a wide range of agencies, working with GP practices within primary care networks, pharmacies, multi-disciplinary teams, hospital discharge teams, allied health professionals, fire service, police, job centres, social care services, housing associations, and voluntary, community and social enterprise (VCSE) organisations (list not exhaustive).
2. Provide personalised support to individuals, their families and carers to take control of their wellbeing, live independently and improve their health outcomes. Develop trusting relationships by giving people time and focus on what matters to me. Take a holistic approach, based on the persons priorities and the wider determinants of health. Co-produce a personalised support plan to improve health and wellbeing, introducing or reconnecting people to community groups and statutory services. The role will require managing and prioritising your own caseload, in accordance with the needs, priorities and any urgent support required by individuals on the caseload. It is vital that you have a strong awareness and understanding of when it is appropriate or necessary to refer people back to other health professionals/agencies, when what the person needs is beyond the scope of the link worker role e.g. when there is a mental health need requiring a qualified practitioner.
3. Work with a diverse range of people and communities, to draw on and increase the strengths and capacities of local communities, enabling local VCSE organisations and community groups (including faith groups) to receive social prescribing referrals.
4. Work together with all local partners to collectively ensure that local VCSE organisations and community groups are sustainable and that community assets are nurtured, by making them aware of small grants or micro-commissioning if available, including providing support to set up new community groups and services, where gaps are identified in local provision.

Key Tasks

1. Promoting social prescribing, its role in self-management, and the wider determinants of health.
2. Build relationships with key staff in GP practices within the local Primary Care Network (PCN), attending relevant meetings, becoming part of the wider network team, giving information and feedback on social prescribing.
3. Be proactive in developing strong links with all local agencies to encourage referrals, recognising what they need to be confident in the service to make appropriate referrals.
4. Work in partnership with all local agencies to raise awareness of social prescribing and how partnership working can reduce pressure on statutory services, improve health outcomes and enable a holistic approach to care.
5. Provide referral agencies with regular updates about social prescribing, including training for their staff and how to access information to encourage appropriate referrals.
6. Seek regular feedback about the quality of service and impact of social prescribing on referral agencies.
7. Be proactive in encouraging self-referrals and connecting with all local communities, particularly those communities that statutory agencies may find hard to reach.

Provide personalised support

1. Meet people on a one-to-one basis, making home visits where appropriate within organisations policies and procedures. Give people time to tell their stories and focus on what matters to me. Build trust with the person, providing non-judgemental support, respecting diversity and lifestyle choices. Work from a strength-based approach focusing on a persons assets.
2. Be a friendly source of information about wellbeing and prevention approaches.
3. Help people identify the wider issues that impact on their health and wellbeing, such as debt, poor housing, being unemployed, loneliness and caring responsibilities.
4. Work with the person, their families and carers and consider how they can all be supported through social prescribing.
5. Help people maintain or regain independence through living skills, adaptations, enablement approaches and simple safeguards.
6. Work with individuals to co-produce a simple personalised support plan based on the persons priorities, interests, values and motivations including what they can expect from the groups, activities and services they are being connected to and what the person can do for themselves to improve their health and wellbeing.
7. Where appropriate, physically introduce people to community groups, activities and statutory services, ensuring they are comfortable. Follow up to ensure they are happy, able to engage, included and receiving good support.
8. Where people may be eligible for a personal health budget, help them to explore this option as a way of providing funded, personalised support to be independent, including helping people to gain skills for meaningful employment, where appropriate.

Support community groups and VCSE organisations to receive referrals

1. Forge strong links with local VCSE organisations, community and groups, utilising their networks and building on what is already available to create a map or menu of community groups and assets. Use these opportunities to promote micro-commissioning or small grants if available.
2. Develop supportive relationships with local VCSE organisations, community groups and statutory services, to make timely, appropriate and supported referrals for the person being introduced.
3. Ensure that local community groups and VCSE organisations being referred to have basic procedures in place for ensuring that vulnerable individuals are safe and, where there are safeguarding concerns, work with all partners to deal appropriately with issues. Where such policies and procedures are not in place, support groups to work towards this standard before referrals are made to them.
4. Check that community groups and VCSE organisations meet in insured premises and that health and safety requirements are in place. Where such policies and procedures are not in place, support groups to work towards this standard before referrals are made to them.
5. Support local groups to act in accordance with information governance policies and procedures, ensuring compliance with the Data Protection Act.
6. Work collectively with all local partners to ensure community groups are strong and sustainable
7. Work with commissioners and local partners to identify unmet needs within the community and gaps in community provision.
8. Support local partners and commissioners to develop new groups and services where needed, through small grants for community groups, micro-commissioning and development support.
9. Encourage people who have been connected to community support through social prescribing to volunteer and give their time freely to others, in order to build their skills and confidence, and strengthen community resilience.
10. Encourage people, their families and carers to provide peer support and to do things together, such as setting up new community groups or volunteering.
11. Provide a regular confidence survey to community groups receiving referrals, to ensure that they are strong, sustained and have the support they need to be part of social prescribing.

Work sensitively with people, their families and carers to capture key information, enabling tracking of the impact of social prescribing on their health and wellbeing.

Encourage people, their families and carers to provide feedback and to share their stories about the impact of social prescribing on their lives.

Person Specification

Other requirements

Essential

• Disclosure Barring Service (DBS) check.
• Evidence of continuing professional development.
• Access to own transport and ability to travel across the locality on a regular basis, including to visit people in their own home.

Desirable

• Flexibility to work outside of core office hours

Qualifications

Essential

• Holds a recognised healthcare or advisory qualification (or equivalent relevant experience).
• Good standard of education with excellent literacy and numeracy skills.
• Leadership and/or management qualification (or equivalent relevant experience)

Skills and Knowledge

Essential

• Ability to communicate complex and sensitive information effectively with people at all levels by telephone, email and face to face.
• Excellent interpersonal, influencing and negotiation skills organisation skills with the ability to constructively challenge the view and practices of managers and clinicians.
• Ability to develop business cases.
• Knowledge of IT systems, including ability to use word processing skills, emails and the internet to create simple plans and reports.
• Be flexible and able to manage sudden and unexpected demands.
• Effective time management (planning and organising).
• To be a strategic thinker and planner with the ability to consider and act upon complex issues.
• To be able to prioritise own work effectively and to direct activities of others.
• Demonstrate personal accountability, emotional resilience and work well under pressure.

Desirable

• Local knowledge of VCSE and community services in the locality.
• Knowledge of how the NHS works, including primary care.

Experience

Essential

• An understanding or previous experience of working within a Primary Care organisation or a comparable not for profit agency.
• Ability to demonstrate management of own caseload and prioritisation of case work.
• Previous experience or providing an advisory service assisting with complex patient situations which require multi agency working.
• Able to interpret, translate and deliver key messages to patient groups.
• Good practical and conceptual knowledge of healthcare improvement methods and community level services for referral purposes .
• Experience of successfully establishing working relationships within teams across multiple locations.

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.

Employer details

Employer name

One Wight Health Ltd

Address

The Bay Medical Practice

Broadway

Sandown

Isle of Wight

PO36 9GA

United Kingdom

Employer's website

https://onewighthealth.co.uk/ (Opens in a new tab)

Job description

Job responsibilities

See supporting document for full job description.

DUTIES AND RESPONSIBILITIES

• Undertaking patient facing and patient supporting roles to ensure effective medicines use, through shared decision-making conversations with patients.
• Conduct medicines optimisation tasks, including searches to support medication reviews, medicines reconciliation from clinic letters and post hospital discharge medicines reconciliation.
• Effective medicine administration, supporting medication reviews and medicines reconciliation. Where required, utilise consultation skills to work in partnership with patients to ensure they use their medicines effectively.
• Support prescribers by identifying and referring eligible patients for Structured Medication Reviews (SMRs), including completing any required SMR pre-work.
• Supporting medication reviews and medicines reconciliation for new patients and synchronising medicines for patient transfers between care settings, linking with local community pharmacists, and referring to Prescribers for structured medication reviews.
• Providing specialist expertise, where competent, to address both the public health and social care needs of patients, including lifestyle advice, service information, and help in tackling local health inequalities.
• Taking a central role in the clinical aspects of shared care protocols and liaising with specialist pharmacists for more complex patients.
• Supporting initiatives for antimicrobial stewardship to reduce inappropriate antibiotic prescribing.
• Working with the multi-disciplinary team to ensure efficient medicines optimisation, including implementing efficient ordering and return processes and reducing wastage.
• Providing training and support on the legal, safe and secure handling of medicines, including the implementation of the Electronic Prescription Service (EPS).
• Developing relationships with other pharmacy technicians, pharmacists, and members of the multi-disciplinary team to support integration of the pharmacy team across health and social care including primary care, community pharmacy, secondary care and mental health.
• Supervising practice reception teams in sorting and streaming general prescription requests, to allow GPs and Prescribers to review the more clinically complex requests.
• Processing repeat prescriptions in line with agreed clinical protocols and supporting with the efficient ordering of medicines.
• The role will also require pharmacy technicians to support the implementation of national prescribing policies and guidance within GP practices, care homes and other primary care settings. This will be achieved through undertaking clinical audits (e.g., use of antibiotics), supporting quality improvement measures and contributing to the Quality and Outcomes Framework and enhanced services. In addition, pharmacy technicians will assist in the delivery of medicines optimisation incentive schemes (e.g., medicines switches) and patient safety audits.
• Pharmacy technicians will provide leadership for medicines management systems, supporting the practice with a range of services to get the best value from medicines by encouraging and implementing Electronic Prescriptions, safe repeat prescribing systems, and timely monitoring and management of high-risk medicines).
• Identify patients that are overdue required monitoring and refer to the appropriate clinicians.
• Ensure shared care protocols are in place where relevant and ensure the continuation of safe practice within primary care is maintained.
• Oversee high-risk medication recall processes, ensuring timely monitoring and compliance.

GENERAL

Maintain registration with GPhC.

Person Specification

Qualifications

Essential

• Registered with the General Pharmaceutical Council (GPhC).
• Meets the specific qualification and training requirements as specified by the GPhC criteria to register as a Pharmacy Technician .
• Enrolled in or qualified from an approved training programme for Primary Care Pharmacy Technicians or, for example, Primary care pharmacy education pathway (PCPEP).

Knowledge and Skills

Essential

• Knowledge of medicines optimisation and repeat prescribing processes.
• Excellent communication skills (Written and Oral).
• IT skills.
• Ability to work independently and as part of a multidisciplinary team.
• Interpersonal skills.
• Ability to work to deadlines.

Desirable

• An understanding and knowledge of healthcare provision in GP practices, QOF and enhanced services.

Experience

Desirable

• Experience of working in a Primary Care setting.
• Experience of recording accurate clinical notes.
• Experience of working with SystmOne.

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.

UK Registration

Applicants must have current UK professional registration. For further information please see NHS Careers website (opens in a new window).

Employer details

Employer name

One Wight Health Ltd

Address

St Helens Medical Centre

Upper Green Road

St Helens

Isle Of Wight

PO33 1UG

United Kingdom

Employer's website

https://onewighthealth.co.uk/ (Opens in a new tab)

Job description

Job responsibilities

Reception Duties

• Receiving patients, consulting with members of practice team
• Be able to cover all reception positions as necessary
• Process appointment requests/future appointments from patients by telephone and in person.
• Deal with patient visits/requests
• Registrations of new patients - computer data entry and medical records (have knowledge of practice area)
• Processing blood test requests and generating these for appointments as per GP request

Telephone

• Have working knowledge of telephone/bleep system, during and after hours
• Have a polite, friendly, approachable telephone manner
• Experience dealing with difficult/agitated patients

Other Tasks

• Clear rooms after surgeries
• Ensure building security
• Any other tasks allocated by managers

Person Specification

Qualifications

Essential

• GCSE Grade A to C in English and Mathematics

Skills

Essential

• Excellent communication skills (Written and Oral).
• IT skills.
• Clear, polite telephone manner.
• Time Management and the ability to work to deadlines.
• Problem solving skills.
• Interpersonal skills.

Experience

Essential

• Experience in working within a Customer Service environment.
• Experience of working with the general public.
• Experience of reception work.
• Awareness of Data Protection Act and need for confidentiality of information.
• Excellent verbal and written communication skills with team members, patients, carers, and other healthcare professionals, with the ability to adjust communication style.
• Attention to detail, able to work accurately, identifying errors quickly and easily.

Desirable

• Experience using SystmOne (Primary Care IT System).
• Experience of working within General Practice.

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.

Employer details

Employer name

One Wight Health Ltd

Address

Argyll House Surgery

78 WEST STREET

Ryde

Isle of Wight

PO33 2QG

United Kingdom

Employer's website

https://onewighthealth.co.uk/ (Opens in a new tab)