Detailed job description and main responsibilities

The following criteria are essential, though support will be given as our commitment to upskilling your professional development:

• Evidence of leadership and managerial skills
• Excellent communication skills, both written and verbal
• Ability to prioritise own workload and able to support team member with this also
• Able to work under pressure and own initiative
• The ability to take blood tests is desirable

The Urgent Community Response Team is comprised of three distinct teams; the hospital avoidance team, the same day response team and the frailty virtual ward The aim of our team is to prevent avoidable hospital admissions for all house bound/Care Home residents in Newcastle and there is an expectation that the successful candidates would work across these teams.

The hospital avoidance team triages and assesses patients who have an acute concern from one of the 9 common clinical conditions set out by NHS England. They provide urgent care to people in their homes which helps to avoid hospital admissions and enable people to live independently for longer. Through this team, older people and adults with complex health needs who urgently need care, can get fast access to a range of health and social care professionals within two hours. This includes access to physiotherapy and occupational therapy, medication prescribing and reviews. Same Day Response operates in a similar way, responding to nursing calls requiring a same day or 2 hour visit that come in throughout the day, visiting a wide variety of patients citywide.

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. 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 patient and carers. 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 ensure the patient has the appropriate follow up in place. Home visits will be conducted as indicated by patient status, with regular face to face visits likely to be established initially, but later reviews may be conducted by telephone or video. 

The successful candidate will have awareness of current evidence-based approaches to patient care and be confident in evaluating care plans and assessing ongoing needs within own level of competency, documenting changes accordingly thus maintaining accurate nursing records in accordance with NMC and Trust Policy. The successful candidate will also have excellent communication skills both with patients and their relatives and/or carers, and also with the wider MDT and have good knowledge of frailty and its management.

The successful candidate will ideally have experience in managing the acutely unwell patient and knowledge of the escalation process should a patient become too unwell to be managed safely in the community. Clinical skills such as history taking, auscultation and medication management is desirable.

Lone working is 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 full, valid driver’s licence and have the use of a vehicle suitable to be able to perform home visits in.

The following dimensions are desirable, please see the job description for further essential criteria:

• On-going professional development
• Evidence of study or willing to undertake further leadership/management training
• Experience in peer to peer support

The Newcastle upon Tyne Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust define a nurse specialist as a qualified nurse where the primary purpose of role is to provide guidance and support based on advanced level knowledge to patients, carers and health professionals, which in this instance is within a virtual ward.

Within the sphere of specialist practice:

• Is working towards advanced knowledge and skills within specialist sphere of practice.
• Contributes to the facilitation of the planning, delivery and evaluation of care pathways for a designated group of patients.
• Support the development of nursing practice within the specialist field and contribute to the body of nursing knowledge.
• Contributes to training and education within specialist area.

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.