Single point of access Practitioner

The post-holder works as an expert clinical practitioner and is responsible for the delivery of patient-focused programmes of care. The post holder will

To provide real time triage and collect information from GPs, ED, and Ambulance Paramedics to ensure the patient is referred onto the correct pathway with internal and external stakeholders through the provision of accurate reporting. Including situation reporting and escalation management systems.

Main duties of the job

The SPOA Practitioner will fulfil their role through the following means:

• Effective patient history taking and triage of conditions
• Understanding of patient pathways available to them.
• Clinical Practice
• Leadership
• Quality and Risk

About us

At the Royal Berkshire NHS Foundation Trust we put our patients at the heart of every element of health and care that we provide. The Trust works together as a community to deliver its vision which is "Working together to provide outstanding care for our community."

Royal Berkshire Hospital has been rated 'Good' following our recent CQC inspection and is committed to delivering high quality care to our patients, which is driven through our core values: Compassionate, Aspirational, Resourceful, Excellent.

Job responsibilities

Single Point of Access Practitioner

• To be proficient at triaging a patients condition through a referral process and ensure the correct admission/admission avoidance pathway is followed, maintaining best patient experience. Often involving complex, sensitive patient information.
• To have a clear understanding of the ED 4 hour standard and how the SPOA can support this.
• To communicate effectively with ED, GPs and departments to ensure collaborative working, communicating complex, clinical and confidential information.
• To take the appropriate action relating to complaints, incidents and effectively manage them.
• A Competent leader, who embraces change and is able to demonstrate support during times of change. This will include supporting the team to expand knowledge and confidence within the SPOA team
• To act up as Senior SPOA coordinator if required
• Assume direct responsibility for:-

Safe and effective triage of patients referred to the Trust through a Netcall system.

Communicating with relevant internal and external stake holders to ensure patients are seen in a timely manner through the correct clinical pathway.

Be competent in, or have an understanding of EPR and its use within a patients journey.

• To work closely with the Site Team to understand flow.
• To support senior colleagues across a spectrum of general and operational management issues aimed at managing overall, the acute medical admission pathways and help support patient flow and admission avoidance.
• Required to attend areas and liaise with clinical and departmental areas across the Trust on a frequent basis throughout the shift
• Optimise the use of the SPOA pathways and their development in the future

1. Facilitate the correct pathway for medical patients referred within the major principles of the Trust and national policies and guidance

2. Establish an effective working relationship with Pathway teams to ensure collection of accurate information with regard to capacity/availability throughout the shift.

3. Liaise with the ED team through-out the shift to assess departmental capacity and initiate escalation processes where required involving assessing and pulling patients working alongside the Medical Registrar to ensure ED has increased capacity and flow.

4. Attend daily operational meetings to communicate capacity issues i.e. number of available beds and predicted number of discharges etc.

5. Liaise closely with ward colleagues to ensure all measures are taken to provide beds for admission of emergency patients in a timely manner to prevent ED breeches.

6. Assist in the establishment of monitoring systems to highlight reasons for bed shortages.

7. concentration levels required for systems interrogation, assessing bed capacity and analysis of research papers

8. Assessing clinical expertise, to understand and assertively advise and to assess referrals and care collaboratively to provide potential de-escalation of a situation and provide best clinical pathway options.

Person Specification Registered Nurse/ Registered Paramedic

• Registered Nurse/ Registered Paramedic Band 7
• 1 Year as a Band 7
• Qualification in patient history taking
• Experience of successful Change Management
• Demonstrates ability to think laterally, creatively and innovatively

Registered Nurse/ Registered Paramedic

• Educated to a minimum of 1st degree level, or able to demonstrate evidence that working towards

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.

Single Point of access Practitioner Lead