IUCS Head of Clinical Delivery

Job description

Job responsibilities

Clinical leadership and patient care:

• Lead clinical delivery across the Urgent Care Coordination Hub, 111 Clinical Assessment Service, care navigation, out-of-hours GP appointments and home visiting. Be visible to staff and take responsibility for the standard and safety of the care patients receive.
• Practise autonomously as an ACP. The clinical element of the role will focus mainly on 111 clinical assessment and telephone consultations, with occasional face-to-face appointments or home visits where service need requires.
• Assess patients who contact the service by telephone. Take a relevant history, identify urgency and risk, make a reasoned clinical-decision and arrange the appropriate next step, including advice, treatment, an appointment, referral or escalation.
• Use clear communication and safety-netting in remote consultations. Explain the plan, what to expect and when to seek further help, taking account of the patients circumstances and ability to access the recommended care.
• Give colleagues senior clinical advice and support. Where a patient needs care beyond the services capability, arrange escalation or transfer and make sure the receiving team has the information it needs.
• Keep records accurate, obtain consent and assess capacity where needed. Maintain professional competence and bring relevant changes in guidance into the service's practice.
• Ensure effective utilisation of allocated financial budget.
• Monitor and maintain staffing levels and skill mix, on a day-to-day basis, responding appropriately to unexpected circumstances.

Clinical staff and their development:

• Line-manage the IUCS clinical workforce, including ACPs, UCPs, telephone practitioners and trainee ACPs.
• Support recruitment and onboarding. Work with the Education Team so new staff understand the service and are suitably trained for their role. Mentor clinical staff and provide additional support to trainee ACPs when an educator or clinical mentor is unavailable.
• Hold appraisals and performance reviews, give regular feedback and address concerns about practice, conduct, productivity or capability. Be clear about what needs to improve and follow NEMS policies and procedures when further action is needed.
• Agree each clinicians scope of practice and supervision arrangements. Identify gaps in skills or confidence and arrange the support needed to address them.
• Make time for regular one-to-ones about staff wellbeing, workload and ideas for service development. Organise clinical supervision and chair regular meetings for the clinical team.
• Set out the clinical staffing and skill mix required to deliver the service. Work with the Operational Service Manager and Rota Team to cover and escalate any risk to safe delivery. The Operational Service Manager coordinates rotas and leads sickness and annual leave processes.

Quality, safety and patient experience:

• Take responsibility for clinical safety and quality across IUCS. Pay particular attention to telephone assessment, clinical decision-making, safety-netting, referral and handover arrangements, and act on safeguarding concerns.
• Make sure the service is ready for CQC inspection, with current evidence-based practice, sound local arrangements and staff who understand their responsibilities.
• Work with the Clinical Governance Lead and Governance Team on incidents, complaints and patient feedback. Provide clinical information and help the service act on learning. The Governance Team coordinates formal investigations; the Head of Clinical Delivery makes sure local actions are completed.
• Gather and review patient and carer feedback in good time. Work with senior clinical staff to understand what it says about care across IUCS and make changes where needed.
• Involve patients and carers when services are reviewed or developed. Speak up for an individual patient when their concern needs to be heard.
• Support the Governance Team in presenting IUCS information at the monthly Patient Safety Steering Group. Contribute to clinical audits when required and use the findings to improve care.

Service performance and development:

• Monitor the response to out-of-hours GP appointments and home visits. Use service information to understand pressures and risks, and agree action with the Operational Service Manager and Medical Lead where responsibilities overlap.
• Maintain an overview of the clinical services finances. Identify pressures early and explain their effect on staffing, capacity or care. Contribute clinical and workforce information to service planning and business cases.
• Keep up to date with developments in NHS 111, integrated urgent care, primary care, integrated care systems and NHS England guidance. Consider what they mean for IUCS and bring forward changes that will improve care or service delivery.
• Lead agreed changes to clinical practice across the service. Work with colleagues and partners to improve pathways between telephone assessment, care navigation, appointments, home visiting, community services and hospital care.
• Work with local and national healthcare providers to improve patient pathways and develop service models. Explain how NEMS services contribute to care across the wider health system.

Partnerships, guidance and NEMS leadership:

• Represent IUCS in clinical discussions with NHS 111 partners, EMAS, the ICB, primary care and secondary care providers. Work with the Medical Lead on matters requiring wider medical or system-level decisions.
• Attend and present at the weekly IUCS Management Meeting. Chair the meeting when the usual chair is absent.
• Attend and contribute to the monthly Clinical Performance Group, and chair where required.
• Attend Senior Leadership Team meetings on a rolling rota, representing the departments local leaders.
• Participate in regular interface meetings with urgent care partners and hospital teams. Support the Governance Team in presenting information about IUCS and following up agreed actions.
• Lead the drafting and review of departmental SOPs and policies. Arrange medical review and sign-off, submitting them for executive approval where required. Develop clinical guidelines with the Medical Lead, who provides final clinical sign-off.

Person Specification

Knowledge and Skills

Essential

• Professional standards, scope of practice and clinical supervision.
• Safe telephone assessment, clinical risk, safety-netting and escalation.
• Clinical governance, patient safety and safeguarding.
• CQC fundamental standards and NHS urgent primary care requirements.
• Patient flow and referral across urgent primary care, ambulance, community and hospital services.
• Fair staff management, confidentiality and equality.
• Sound clinical judgement under pressure, including when to seek further advice.
• Communicates clearly by telephone and can assess risk when visual cues are not available.
• Addresses performance concerns fairly and promptly.
• Uses service data to identify problems and check whether changes work.
• Writes clear procedures, reports and staff communications.
• Balances clinical work and management, and knows when to escalate.
• Works across professional boundaries and leads service change.

Desirable

• NHS 111 and integrated urgent care pathways.
• Patient Safety Incident Response Framework (PSIRF).
• Nottinghamshire urgent care pathways and local partners.
• Business case preparation.
• Use of Adastra or comparable clinical and reporting systems.
• Chairing clinical or performance meetings.

Experience

Essential

• Substantial ACP experience in urgent, primary, community or emergency care.
• Experience conducting telephone consultations and remote clinical assessments.
• Experience managing clinical staff, including appraisal and performance concerns.
• Experience improving clinical quality or service performance.
• Experience contributing to incident learning, audit or complaints review.

Desirable

• Experience in NHS 111 clinical assessment or a comparable urgent care clinical assessment service.
• Experience supporting out-of-hours GP appointments or home-visiting services.
• Senior clinical service management or service mobilisation.
• Workforce redesign and budget or contractual performance management.
• Working with commissioners and external providers.

Qualifications

Essential

• Qualifications and training:
• Current registration with the NMC, HCPC, GPhC or another appropriate UK professional regulator.
• Completed Masters-level qualification in Advanced Clinical Practice.
• Current autonomous ACP practice and continuing professional development.
• Training or substantial experience in clinical leadership, staff supervision and performance management.

Desirable

• Qualifications and training:
• Leadership or management qualification.
• Education, supervision or mentorship qualification.

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

NEMS Community Benefit Services Ltd

Address

Forward House

Station Street

Nottingham

NG2 3AJ

United Kingdom

Employer's website

https://nemscbs.net/

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