Job description
There is a wonderful opportunity to become the clinical nursing expert within the Occupational Health Nursing Team at University Hospital Plymouth.
The person is required to have extensive Occupational Health knowledge and experience and the drive to share that understanding with the nurse team.
Please contact Mel Morrell [email protected] or Chris Little [email protected] for an informal chat
1. The post holder will provide specialist guidance and support to managers and staff, in accordance with national legislation and local policies, procedures and protocols.
2. The post holder will offer specialist support assisting the Lead Nurse for Health and Wellbeing in the day to day running of the clinical service, guided by broad occupational and national policies and principles.
3. The post holder will ensure that care is evidence based and delivered by competent and confident practitioners and meets the needs of professions, service lines, individuals, patients and complies with national standards.
4. The post holder will in conjunction with the Lead Nurse for Health and Wellbeing take the Nursing lead on clinical governance, patient safety and quality, within Occupational Health.
5. The post holder will provide professional leadership, expertise, advice and support to the multidisciplinary team, acting as a clinical expert and as a resource for all staff within Occupational Health & Wellbeing Services.
6. The post holder will assist in the development of this service, in collaboration with other teams and services internal and external to the trust.
7. The post holder will provide vision for service development and utilise personal skills in implementing the vision
University Hospitals Plymouth NHS Trust is the largest hospital in the south west peninsula, providing comprehensive secondary and tertiary healthcare. Our geography gives us a secondary care catchment population of 450,000 with a wider peninsula population of almost 2,000,000 people who can access our specialist services. The population is characterised by its diversity - the rural and the urban, the wealthy and pockets of deprivation, and wide variance in health and life expectancy. We work within a network of other hospitals to offer a range of specialist services such as kidney transplant, cardiothoracic surgery and neonatal intensive care and high risk obstetrics.
Please note that applications from temporary workers who have been engaged with the Trust for a minimum of 3 months are welcome.
Clinical Leadership
1. To have specialist clinical knowledge of Occupational Health underpinned by theory and practical experience acquired through degree/diploma and ongoing specialist training courses
2. Maintain highest clinical standards in delivering services e.g. Inoculation incident support and advice, vaccinations for healthcare workers and in running vaccination programmes such as seasonal flu.
3. Provide support and advice to managers to enable them to manage complex health issues
4. Ensure highest levels of clinical governance, through effective policies and SOP’s
5. To assist in the management core occupational health services, e.g., employment health assessment, health monitoring and surveillance programmes, health education and health promotion to reduce occupational symptoms, conditions and diseases, e.g. skin integrity and occupational health referral
6. To ensure that service delivery is compliant with national standards, professional guidance, legislation and SEQOHS, which can be audited and evidenced based
7. To ensure that OH practitioners participate in induction sessions and any additional training required in support of policies or as part of health promotion initiatives.
8. Ensure that departmental protocols and policies are in place and adhered too.
9. To set and monitor high standards of clinical care, underpinned by sound evidence-based knowledge and ‘Essence of Care’ principles ensuring quality systems are in place to monitor practice.
10. Health and Safety standards, leading investigation and follow up of all clinical incidents (as per the Trust’s Clinical Incident Reporting policy), and complaints.
11. Sharing lessons learnt from complaints/incidents within the wider corporate body and ensuring action plans are implemented.
12. Maintaining own clinical competence and active NMC registration, acting as a role model demonstrating clinical excellence and clinical credibility within Occupational Health & Wellbeing.
13. Act as a positive change agent and role model, identifying and initiating changes as required enhancing service provision.
14. Lead and coordinate the development and review of the service line’s clinical guidelines, procedures, protocols and policies to ensure they reflect current best evidence /practice, and national guidance.
15. Assist in the development of Provide advice to the Occupational Health & Wellbeing staff on the development of new policies. Ensure that all new documents are appropriately disseminated within the service line, develop a system for the archiving of local policies.
16. Participate in professional advisory groups and projects teams to provide expertise and specialists knowledge in relation to critical care nursing. This may be at a local national or international level.
Education
1. To lead on the education and training of new staff within the Occupational Health Nurse team
2. To ensure the nurse induction plan and training is individually planned and meets the needs of the service
3. Ensure that all staff undertake UHP induction and local induction policy
4. Support continuing personal development to enable members of the team to develop their full potential.
5. To manage the continued education of the nursing workforce within Occupational Health
6. Enable effective student nurse placement and facilitation of other learners to meet placement learning.
7. Ensure that complaints/incidents are used to assist with learning within the department
8. Participate in the delivery of educational programmes as required in partnership with education providers.
9. Ensure Occupational Health has systems and processes in place to assess competence of nursing skills and address any identified skills deficit.
10. Evaluate the impact of learning and development programs on individuals and service delivery for the clinical, competency-based training delivered; use analytical skills to produce regular reports on training activity as required.
11. Responsible, in conjunction with the nursing team, for the identification of learning needs, co-ordination of core training, clinical skills development and education of all nursing staff within Occupational Health.
12. Ensure adequate provision of specific formal education programmes in response to identified needs for all staff within Occupational Health.
13. Ensure learning environment fulfils assessment criteria for nurse education and the Quality Assurance Agency for Higher Education.
14. Link education to existing risk management structures to manage clinical risk.
Research and Audit
1. Ensure that the nurse team take an active part in auditing the services that are provided
1. Support the development of reflective practice and clinical incident analysis amongst the staff.
2. Lead the development of nursing practice and actively encourage the assimilation of new information and research within the nursing team.
3. Audit the effectiveness of educational provision within Occupational Health area.
Service Development
1. To actively participate and contribute to Occupational Health & Wellbeing service planning, design and strategy.
2. Actively contribute to service plans to improve patient/client access.
3. Provide vision and contribute to the optimal organisation of services within the Occupational Health & Wellbeing service line.
4. Assist in developing nursing policies and guidelines across the service, ensuring that these are implemented and adhered to.
Managerial
1. Assist in manage the Occupational Health & Wellbeing nursing team, motivating, supporting, and developing the team to maximise the implementation of their work programme.
2. To assist in the management of the delegated budget within the Occupational Health & Wellbeing service line including authorising EPROC requests, and other purchasing requests that may arise.
1. To be accountable for authorising rosters within the Occupational Health service line including, team expenses and overtime payments.
1. To participate in the management of the Occupational Health department by way of a collective responsibility approach which cuts across all other professional boundaries. Such an approach will be based upon a clinical governance model.
1. As part of the multi-disciplinary clinical/management team, or where appropriate as individual lead develop and maintain service line major incident and business continuity plans.
2. Retention and Recruitment of all nursing and support staff.
3. Advise on staffing levels and skill mix for individual areas.
4. Lead the implementation of the Appraisal system with Personal Development Plans, linking into the educational strategy and KSF and ensuring that compliance is reported as per Trust policy.
1. Contribute to business cases/plans/option appraisals for service development / equipment based on detailed, expert analysis of service provision / redesign methodology.
2. As part of the multi-disciplinary clinical/management team, or where appropriate as individual lead develop a workforce strategy for Occupational Health & Wellbeing.
Communication
All communication to be within the confines of the Data Protection Act and Patient Confidentiality
1. Leading the establishment of a teamwork philosophy, empowering others to take part in the decision-making process. This will include establishing and maintaining channels of communication that disseminate key clinical and organisational information to all relevant staff and allow feedback.
2. Maintain good relationships with other professional leads and all members of staff, thus developing professionalism through the unit. This will include dealing with all disciplinary issues and will require the use of influencing/negotiating/empathetic and basic counselling skills.
3. In conjunction with the multidisciplinary clinical/management team, lead the communication of change within sphere of responsibility.
4. Ensure good communication both verbally and via formal documentation with all members of the multidisciplinary clinical/management team.
5. Work in partnership with the patient, family and external agencies as appropriate and other health care professionals in resolving formal and informal complaints.
6. Ensure staff are aware of and able to locate all policies relating to good working practice within the clinical area. Arrange and chair regular staff meetings, ensuring agreed actions are minuted and reviewed. Participate, and where appropriate lead, in other Directorate / Corporate forums as required.
7. Lead the integration of Patient and Public Involvement agenda within sphere of responsibility.
8. Work across organisational boundaries in order to enhance professional practice and support a care pathway approach to the provision of care
9. Attend meetings as required in order to support the delivery of the professional and managerial agenda.
10. Act as role model for difficult and complex behaviours – actively seek opportunities to include junior staff in situations where complex issues/behaviours are addressed.
11. Present formal reports at various Trust wide forums
12. Maintain good working relationships with Union Representatives and staff as required especially during implementation of new working conditions.