Job summary
- Main area
- Exercise and Rehabilitation
- Grade
- NHS AfC: Band 4
- Contract
- 12 months (fixed term)
- Hours
- Full time - 37.5 hours per week (pro rata weekends (~ 1:5))
- Job ref
- 196-LIS9754
- Employer
- Guy's and St Thomas' NHS Foundation Trust
- Employer type
- NHS
- Site
- Royal Brompton Hospital
- Town
- London
- Salary
- £33,094 - £36,195 pro rata incl. HCA
- Salary period
- Yearly
- Closing
- 17/08/2025 23:59
Employer heading
Exercise/ Nutrition Therapy Assistant Practitioner
NHS AfC: Band 4
Guy’s and St Thomas’ is among the UK’s busiest and most successful NHS foundation trusts. We provide a full range of hospital and community services for people in south London and as well as specialist care for patients from further afield including cancer, renal, orthopaedic, respiratory and cardiovascular services.
Guy’s is home to the largest dental school in Europe and a £160 million Cancer Centre opened in 2016. As part of our commitment to provide care closer to home, in 2017 we also opened a cancer centre and a kidney treatment centre at Queen Mary’s Hospital in Sidcup. St Thomas’ has one of the largest critical care units in the UK and one of the busiest emergency departments in London. It is also home to Evelina London Children’s Hospital.
Evelina London cares for local children in Lambeth and Southwark and provides specialist services across south east England including cardiac, renal and critical care services. We lead a number of specialist service networks aiming to ensure children are treated locally where possible, but have access to specialist expertise when they need it. Our community services include health visiting, school nursing and support for families of children with long-term conditions.
Our adult community services teams deliver care at the heart of the local communities we serve, working in partnership with GPs, local authorities and other healthcare and voluntary sector organisations. Working with our partners in Lambeth and Southwark, we are focusing on new ways of working to improve care for local patients.
In February 2021 the Royal Brompton and Harefield joined Guy’s and St Thomas’ NHS Foundation Trust, bringing together world-leading expertise in the care and research of heart and lung disease. Our merger provides a once in a generation opportunity to build a lasting, world-renowned heart and lung centre, providing the highest quality care for patients and conducting world-leading research.
We have a reputation for clinical excellence and high quality teaching and research. We are part of King’s Health Partners, one of eight accredited UK academic health sciences centres. In partnership with King’s College London we have dedicated clinical research facilities including an MHRA accredited Phase I clinical trials unit.
Patients are at the heart of everything we do and we pride ourselves on ensuring the best possible patient experience as well as safe, high quality care. We are proud to have one of the lowest mortality rates in the NHS. Following a comprehensive Care Quality Commission (CQC) inspection in 2019 we maintained our overall rating of ‘good’. Our adult community services achieved a rating of ‘outstanding’.
The commitment of our 23,500 staff is key to our success. We are one of the largest local employers and we aim to develop and support all our staff so they are able to deliver high quality, safe and efficient care. The 2019 NHS staff survey results show that we have one of the most engaged and motivated workforces in the NHS. We know this has a positive impact on the care provided to our patients.
We have one of the most ambitious capital investment programmes anywhere in the NHS.
Job overview
The post holder will be an integral member of the adult lung multidisciplinary therapy team, and they will work particularly closely with the physiotherapists, and also support the Occupational Therapist (OT) and dietitian.
They will be responsible for supporting the therapy multidisciplinary team to provide a patient-centred service, in an efficient and cost-effective way. They will have excellent interpersonal skills and knowledge of both exercise programme creation and exercise physiology.
Main duties of the job
- Be responsible for exercise prescription and supervision for in/ outpatients with chronic respiratory conditions in face-to-face & virtual sessions.
- Prescribe and teach a range of exercise modalities (strength, cardiovascular training, flexibility & stretching).
- Monitor and review in/ outpatient progress with individualised exercise programmes.
- Lead in/outpatient exercise / nutrition classes, with support from senior staff, including class administration, provision of exercise and evaluation of classes.
- Support the wider therapy MDT e.g. OT and respiratory dietitian in completing assessments and onward referrals.
- Carry out assessments for patients post discharge from hospital, liaising closely with the MDT & feed back the outcome of assessments at team meetings.
- When delegated, carry out other clinical tasks (such as supervision of airway clearance programmes), with oversight from qualified therapists.
- Carry out clinical assessments independently such as lung spirometry, exercise testing and oxygen saturation/heart rate recordings, body composition, and interpreting these for safely exercising patients.
- Manage equipment provision and education for lung patients, with support from senior staff.
- Participate in the physiotherapy assistant weekend and public holiday service as rostered (once competencies are obtained in airway clearance and long-term rehabilitation).
Working for our organisation
Guy’s and St Thomas’ NHS Foundation Trust comprises five of the UK’s best known hospitals – Guy’s, St Thomas’, Evelina London Children’s Hospital, Royal Brompton and Harefield – as well as community services in Lambeth and Southwark, all with a long history of high quality care, clinical excellence, research and innovation.
We have a long tradition of clinical and scientific achievement and – as part of King’s Health Partners – we are one of England’s eight academic health sciences centres, bringing together world-class clinical services, teaching and research. We have one of the National Institute for Health Research’s biomedical research centres, established with King’s College London in 2007, as well as dedicated clinical research facilities.
Royal Brompton and Harefield hospitals joined Guy’s and St Thomas’ in February 2021 and is the largest specialist heart and lung centre in the UK and among the largest in Europe. We provide treatment for people with heart and lung disease, including rare and complex conditions, offering some of the most sophisticated treatment that is available anywhere in the world.
Our values help us to define and develop our culture, what we do and how we do it. It is important that we all understand and reflect these values in our work. We are:
Caring – we put patients first.
Ambitious – we innovate and strive for excellence.
Inclusive – we respect each other and work collaboratively.
Detailed job description and main responsibilities
Patient Care Responsibilities
- To work as a core member of the lung therapy team and effectively within the respiratory medicine/ lung Multidisciplinary Team (MDT).
- To lead and participate in physical activity and exercise assessment and interventions, either face to face, by telephone or over virtual platforms with patients under the care of the adult lung team. Treatment may be inpatient or outpatient focused, and take place in the hospital, outpatient clinics or day-case.
- To review of patients under the care of the OT and dietitian e.g. symptom management, equipment provision and education, functional rehabilitation and nutrition reviews.
- To provide technically specialised support to patients in hospital, carrying out tasks such as exercise testing, daily supervised patient exercise and/or airway clearance sessions, with direct and indirect supervision from the physiotherapy team.
- To work autonomously, performing given tasks independently, with responsibility for recognising and reporting any concerns to the physiotherapist or appropriate member of the clinical team, engaging in daily feedback.
- To demonstrate an awareness of safe practise and insight into the need for onward referral, particularly when carrying out exercise testing and exercise programmes and when lone working.
- To monitor and continually reassess patients requirements, using clinical judgement and knowledge, to progress or modify treatments effectively to meet patient goals within follow up reviews.
- To have the ability to motivate patients, promoting and encouraging engagement in physical activity.
Educational Duties
- To work under the Clinical Assistant Competency programme under the supervision of the therapists, both gaining and maintaining the required knowledge and skills in the relevant technical and clinical procedures relevant to the role.
- To develop and maintain knowledge of the speciality of chronic respiratory conditions, particularly around exercise physiology and exercise training, in addition to basic nutritional assessment and symptom management. To continuously develop practical and professional knowledge that will support the delivery of care to this group of patients.
- To be pro-active with regard to learning from physiotherapy staff, the wider MDT and other relevant staff within the Trust.
- To be responsible for and actively record own personal and professional development, and to participate in the trust appraisal scheme annually.
- To be willing to distil own knowledge and expertise to others, delivering teaching and education sessions to other staff when requested.
- To actively participate in team projects, service development and in-house training.
Please review job description document for full role responsibilities.
Person specification
Qualifications
Essential criteria
- Minimum 5 GCSEs (including Maths and English) or equivalent NVQ at level 2/3
- BTEC or two equivalent ‘A’ levels – to include biological sciences
- Has at least one or more of the qualifications stated above in relevant topic area such as health, care, nutrition, life sciences.
Desirable criteria
- Foundation degree (clinical assistant practice) OR NVQ 3 in care OR formal exercise training qualification
Experience
Essential criteria
- Good understanding of exercise physiology and pulmonary rehabilitation
- Competence in advising on exercise training programmes
- Interest in chronic respiratory disease management
- Experience of working in a team
Desirable criteria
- Previous experience of giving presentations to small groups
- Experience of managing projects and / or carrying out audits
- Experience as a therapy assistant in a healthcare setting including medical record keeping
- Experience using computer databases and spreadsheets (e.g. Excel, Access)
Skills
Essential criteria
- Excellent communication skills with patient/ client groups and staff using various methods of communication
- Time management
- Team working
- Teaching and training others
Employer certification / accreditation badges
Applicant requirements
This post is subject to the Rehabilitation of Offenders Act 1974 (Exceptions) Order 1975 (Amendment) (England and Wales) Order 2020 and it will be necessary for a submission for Disclosure to be made to the Disclosure and Barring Service.
Documents to download
Further details / informal visits contact
- Name
- Zelda Beverley
- Job title
- Clinical Specialist Respiratory Physio
- Email address
- [email protected]
- Additional information
Rasleen Kahai - [email protected]
Highly Specialist Dietitian
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