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An exciting opportunity has arisen to join a new, innovative and dynamic team within our expanding Virtual Wards. Working into the Frailty Virtual Ward in the community, we are looking for experienced and motivated Health Care Assistants who are passionate about providing high standard of patient centred care. You will be working closely within a multidisciplinary team of staff including Doctors, Nurses, Occupational Therapists, and Physiotherapists, all of whom are committed to maintaining independence, promoting self-care and assisting patients in their usual place of residence to achieve their goals. Oftentimes, this post therefore requires you to work autonomously, when working across the city into patients own homes. The successful candidates will be hardworking, reliable, able to use their initiative, and work flexibly to respond to the service needs, this includes working evenings, weekends and bank holidays.

• Interview date: 12 June 2023
• Full and part time hours available
• You will be redirected to Trac to apply for the vacancy. Please expand the job details section and read all of the information before applying for the vacancy.

The Frailty Virtual Ward is operational 24 hours a day, 7 days a week, 365 days a year. As a member of our multi-disciplinary team, you will work to meet the needs of complex community patients, undertaking a broad range of duties relating to the care of patients in the virtual ward. The post holders will work under the direction of the Frailty Virtual Ward team providing care and support as required to patients and their families which supports early discharge and avoiding admissions to the acute hospital sites.

This exciting role offers the opportunity to work in a caring, supportive, and professional environment where you will contribute to the care and support of patients in the community both virtually and face to face.

The following skills are desirable, though training will be given as our commitment to upskilling and supporting your professional development:

• Promoting independence, supporting people to wash and dress.
• Encourage and motivate patients
• Independent travel between patient's homes and the office base in a timely manner
• Good IT skills including use of electronic record keeping systems

Newcastle Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust is one of the busiest, largest and most successful teaching NHS foundation trusts in the country, with over 18,000 staff and an annual income of £1 billion.

Rated ‘Outstanding’ by the CQC for the second consecutive time in 2019, we have a long history of providing high quality care, clinical excellence, and innovation in medical research regionally, nationally and internationally.

We’re also proud to be the second largest provider of specialised services in the country. This means we support people with a range of rare and complex medical, surgical and neurological conditions, cancers and genetic orders.

Our staff oversee around 1.84 million patients ‘contacts’ each year, delivering high standards of healthcare.

We are committed to promoting equality and diversity and recognise the benefit in providing an inclusive environment. We value and respect the diversity of our employees and aim to recruit a workforce which reflects the communities we serve, and is equipped to deliver the best service to our patients. We welcome all applications irrespective of people’s race, disability, gender, sexual orientation, religion or belief, age, gender identity, marriage and civil partnership, pregnancy and maternity and in particular those from under- represented groups.

The Newcastle Frailty Virtual Ward (FVW) plays a vital role in supporting patients with acute frailty syndromes at their usual place of residence, both supporting early discharge and preventing hospital admission. This geriatrician-led team enables the medical management of acute illness and frailty syndromes with the patient supported in their familiar environment by familiar carers, supplemented by additional members of the frailty multidisciplinary team as needed.

Patients will be referred to the FVW from ‘Front of House’ (Emergency Department (ED), Assessment Suite (AS)), ‘Back of House’ ward step-down, (initially from Older People’s Medicine (OPM)) and Community ‘step-up’ locations. Following initial assessment to confirm diagnoses, eligibility and both acute and long-term care needs, patients will be admitted to the FVW and a multidisciplinary management plan devised and communicated to the patient and their carers. This will involve interventions from across the team, including yourself as an health care assistants (HCA), and geriatricians, specialist nurses, physiotherapists, occupational therapists, dementia and delirium specialist nurses, and pharmacists.

While on the FVW, patients will have access to most of the medical treatments available in hospital, therefore in working in partnership with the patient to achieve optimum levels of self-care, you will support the wider team in delivering patient the appropriate follow up. Home visits will be conducted as indicated by patient status, with regular face to face visits likely to be established initially, but later may be conducted by telephone or video.

The Health Care Assistant role is an opportunity to support senior staff in delivering a service to patients in the community, and provide outstanding care and support to patients in their own homes. The role involves working as part of the wider MDT to optimise patient outcomes, managing own caseload of patients and progress treatment programmes as directed by qualified staff. The successful candidates provide personal care, medication support and support with functional skills such as eating, drinking, getting ready, as well as working towards further competencies. You will also support the fitting and monitoring of equipment, ensuring it is installed safely and reporting any concerns to senior clinicians.

Successful candidates are required to work unsupervised, reporting patient progress and escalating appropriately to senior clinician. Lone working is therefore a significant part of the role and the candidate should be familiar with the Trust lone working policy. Lone working safety devices will be available to staff. The candidate will need to hold a valid driver’s licence and have a vehicle suitable to be able to perform home visits in.

To abide by Trust policies and procedures

• To assist the Registered Nurses and other registered health care practitioners in providing high quality patient care
• Work collaboratively as an effective member of MDT
• Maintain patients privacy and dignity at all times
• Be an effective part of the multi-disciplinary team contributing to the departmental objectives.
• Continue to develop and maintain competencies in nursing tasks to maintain high quality safe care.

As a flexible working friendly organisation, we want to be sure that you can work in a way that is best for us and for our patients, and for you. Speak to us about how we might be able to accommodate a flexible working arrangement. If it works for the service, we will do our best to make it work for you.

Please note it is a requirement of The Newcastle upon Tyne Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust that all successful candidates who require a DBS for the post they have been offered pay for their DBS certificate. The method of payment is a salary deduction from your first month’s pay.

As a flexible working friendly organisation, we want to be sure that you can work in a way that is best for us and for our patients, and for you. Speak to us about how we might be able to accommodate a flexible working arrangement. If it works for the service, we will do our best to make it work for you.