Job overview

The post holder will be a Band 7 Physiotherapist specialising in respiratory care within paediatrics and participating as a member of the Gloucestershire Children’s Physiotherapy team independently managing a specialised clinical caseload.  This involves assessment, advising, planning, delivering and evaluating treatment for a complex caseload of children and their families.  They may also co-ordinate a local team on a day-to-day basis taking responsibility for delegation, supervision, development and teaching.

This role is a post within a well established community team. It is an exciting and evolving role with the opportunity to impact and support patients and their families in their home environments. The wider team is supportive and dynamic, with a wealth of expertise to draw on. Clinical and operational supervision, as well as support to attend wider networks are encouraged and provided.  

Main duties of the job

The purpose of this post is to provide highly specialist physiotherapy outside of the hospital setting, for children presenting with complex respiratory needs. 

This role will include ongoing maintenance physiotherapy programmes, manual techniques, suction and other airway clearance techniques, including suction.  The post holder will have the opportunity to work closely with the paediatric respiratory physiotherapists in the hospital setting, as well as working with neuromuscular physiotherapists and the wider respiratory multidisciplinary team.  The post holder will collaboratively develop the service and provide a source of expertise locally, providing education and support for parents/carers and community staff caring for these children. The post holder will provide leadership within the Children & Young People’s Physiotherapy Service providing, co-ordinating, developing, auditing and evaluating the service ensuring it is evidence based and in line with Clinical Governance requirements. This post is community based and the post holder will carry his/her own caseload and at times will be expected to work independently in locations away from base.

The qualification, training & experience requirements for the role are underlined in the Job Description/Person Specification.

Working for our organisation

We have a skilled and dedicated workforce of over 5000 colleagues working in a diverse range of services over 55 sites and within people’s homes. We strive to enable a welcoming workplace culture that builds and celebrates civility, inclusivity and diversity, while providing a sense of belonging and trust.

Annual staff surveys, regular Pulse surveys and other engagement opportunities provide our people with lots of opportunity to tell us about their experiences of working with us.  In the latest staff survey, 61% of colleagues gave us their views.  It was great to hear that:

• 72% of colleagues would recommend the Trust as a place to work, ranking us 1st for Provider Trusts in the South West region on this question.
• 76% would recommend the standard of care provided in our services if a friend or relative needed treatment, also ranking us 1st in the South West region.
• 81% said that care of patients and service users is the Trust’s priority, compared with an average in comparable NHS Trusts in England of 64%.

 This high-level overview shows we are in a healthy position, with higher scores than average for comparable organisations, alongside a great response rate, indicating good staff engagement.  However, we also know we have plenty of room for improvement in many areas. To that end, we continue to prioritise and invest in our commitment to genuinely becoming a Great Place to Work with consistent top-quartile performance in the annual staff survey and Pulse surveys.