Detailed job description and main responsibilities

Key results from the job holder

• To be responsible for a designated area of work, as agreed with the team leader, and to plan and organise efficiently and effectively with regard to patients management and use of time.
• To maintain own clinical professional development (CPD) by keeping abreast of any new trends and developments, and incorporate them as necessary into your work.
• To decide priorities for own work area, balancing other patient related and professional demands, and ensure that they remain in accordance with those of the section as a whole.

Planning and Organisational Duties

• To be professionally and legally responsible and accountable for all aspects of your own work including the management of patients in your care.  To ensure high standards of clinical care for the patients under your management, and support physiotherapy assistants and students to do likewise.
• Post holders are required to work independently, guided by defined clinical and professional guidelines.  Access to a more senior member physiotherapist is available when necessary.  Clinical work is evaluated on a regular basis.
• To interpret and analyse clinical and non-clinical facts to form accurate diagnosis and prognosis in a wide range of conditions, to recommend the best course of intervention, and to develop comprehensive discharge plans.
• To take delegated responsibility from the team leader for managing patients with particular conditions and be responsible for providing physiotherapy assessment and treatment plans for patients with these conditions.
• Formulate and deliver an individual physiotherapy treatment programme based on a sound knowledge of evidence based practice and treatment options using clinical assessment, reasoning skills and knowledge of treatment skills
• To accept clinical responsibility for a designated caseload of patients, and to organise this effectively and efficiently with regard to clinical priorities and use of time.
• To accept responsibility for the carrying and efficient answering of any bleep delegated by a team leader.
• To accept partial responsibility for any tasks delegated to unqualified staff.
• To assist the team in developing policy changes.

Communications and Key Working Relationships

• To communicate patient-related information (as well as non-patient information) effectively and work collaboratively with medical, nursing and therapy colleagues to ensure delivery of a co-ordinated multidisciplinary service.  This will include case conferences, ward rounds, meetings and discharge planning as appropriate.
• To communicate effectively with patients and carers to maximise rehabilitation potential and to ensure basic understanding of condition. Use communication skills such as persuasion, motivation, explanation to encourage patients to undertake their management programme.
• To use communication tools (verbal and non-verbal) to gain informed consent with patients where there will often be barriers to effective communication e.g. loss of hearing, altered perception, expressive and receptive dysphasia, pain, fear etc.
• To assess capacity, gain valid consent and have the ability to work within a legal framework with patients who lack consent to treatment.
• To maintain accurate, comprehensive and up-to-date documentation, in line with legal and departmental requirements and communicate assessment and treatment results to the appropriate disciplines in form of reports and letters.
• To produce informative and detailed information for out of Trust patient transfers for continuing physiotherapy management.

Responsibility for Finance

• To be actively involved in the collection of appropriate data and statistics for the use of the physiotherapy service.

Responsibility for Human Resources

• To assist the team leader to train, supervise and performance manage more junior staff, physiotherapy assistants and students. This will include the use formal appraisal documentation.

Responsibility for Health & Safety

• Compliance with the Health & Safety at Work Act 1974 – the post holder is required to fulfil a proactive role towards the management of risk in all of their actions. This entails the risk assessment of all situations, the taking of appropriate actions and reporting of all incidents, near misses and hazards, and a statutory duty of care for their own personal safety and that of others who may be affected by their acts or omissions. 

Responsibility for Teaching

• To provide spontaneous and planned advice, teaching and instruction to relatives, carers and other professionals, to promote understanding of the aims of physiotherapy, and to ensure a consistent approach to patient care.
• To provide advice to physiotherapy colleagues working within other clinical areas (out-patients, sub-acute sites and in-patient specialities)
• To provide advice, teaching and training to other members of the MDT regarding the physiotherapy management of patients within the speciality.
• Supervise, educate and assess the performance of physiotherapy students; this would be to a graduate standard and involve working with Universities to ensure the standard of practice and teaching meets the standards set by the degree level qualification.
• To be an active member of the in-service training programme by the attendance and delivering of presentations and training sessions at staff meetings, tutorials, training sessions in house and by attending external courses and practising reflective practice.