Clinical Specialist Occupational Therapist Acute medicine

We are excited to announce an opportunity for an experienced Occupational Therapist to join our Acute Medicine team at Worcestershire Royal Hospital on a fixed term basis until 31st March 2027.

We are looking for an Occupational therapist with skills in early assessment, identification of treatment goals, complex manual handling, discharge planning, cognitive assessments mental capacity assessments and outreach experience to join our Integrated Therapy Team which offers collaborative and specialist care to our patients on the Acute Medical Floor.

You will work in alongside physiotherapists and the wider MDT to provide outstanding and seamless care to prevent hospital admissions, identify therapy needs early in the patients journey and provide an interface between the Acute Care and Community Care services for Occupational Therapy.

Our recently Integrated Therapy Service supports all staff to be part of service development projects, encouraging forward thinking to modernise our services. A key aim of this role is to support in providing appropriate selection, management and discharge of patients to Worcestershire Hospital at Home clinical pathways to facilitate earlier discharge from hospital by providing skilled assessments within the patients home through countywide outreach and virtual assessments.

Job description

Job Purpose:

The post holder will be working as highly specialist autonomous practitioner, professionally and legally accountable for all aspects of own work, including provision of patient care, documentation and use of specialist equipment.

To deliver advanced Occupational Therapy assessment and treatment for medical patients within an acute ward setting. To act as a source of expertise to fellow clinicians, Trust managers, Healthcare Professionals and other services internal and external to the Trust as required.

To manage, supervise and appraise staff and students.

To lead in training and development of clinical practice and service.

To undertake clinical audits and evaluation of evidence based practice, initiating/participating in research within specialist area.

Key Duties:

To be a source of expertise, to identify, analyse, evaluate and problem solve to enable the development and delivery of individualised intervention and treatment programmes in a variety of settings.

To provide a consultative role with relatives and staff providing advice, recommendations, support, training and instruction as identified.

To undertake all aspects of clinical duties as an autonomous practitioner, managing and prioritising own caseload and time. Maintain appropriate records and data inputting.

To provide leadership and management on a daily basis to the therapy team within specialist area, including supervision, appraisal and development. To be involved in recruitment process for these staff.

To supervise, educate and assess the performance of students as required. Work with universities to ensure the standard of practice and teaching meets the requirements of the degree level qualification. To contribute to the education of students from other disciplines.

To deliver training to multi-disciplinary team members ensuring competence in performing duties within their agreed scope of practice.

To undertake Evidence Based audit and research projects to further own and teams clinical practice, making recommendations for changes. Leading the implementation of specific changes to practice / contributing to service protocols, with own specialist area.

To take a lead role within own speciality team, providing highly specialist Occupational Therapy assessment and treatment of patients with diverse presentations and complex physical and psychological conditions within an acute and/or in community setting.

To use specialist skills to effectively manage caseload, work priorities including service delivery, patient and professional demands.

To be an active member of the relevant weekend rota and to have flexible working to align with your designated clinical area.

The job role includes working bank holidays and 7 day working as part of a roster system as required. To be able to travel and work in support of OT service including 7 day service and service provision.

General Duties:

CLINICAL AND PROFESSIONAL

To be responsible for the planning and leadership of the occupational therapy service (within own speciality) countywide, prioritising clinical needs to provide an effective, efficient service.

Responsible for efficient and safe care management of medical patients as part of the Multi-disciplinary teams, including risk assessments.

To be responsible for the development, implementation, and delivery of Occupational Therapy including assessment, treatment planning and carrying out treatment for own patient workload.

To monitor and advise on the clinical input of others and ensure patients receive the highest level of care.

To develop and implement treatment programmes and initiate discharge planning. To be skilled in assessing and interpreting a range of complex factors relating to the patients condition, including diagnosis and prognosis. Highly specialised skills in the assessment and provision of occupational therapy for patients who have complex medical conditions and multiple co-morbidities.

To take responsibility for own professional actions, demonstrating knowledge and skills to manage a caseload including complex and specialist cases, evidencing high level problem solving, reasoning skills and independent clinical judgement

To apply a high level of understanding of the effect of disability and provide training and advice on lifestyles changes and adaptations to the clients social and physical environment both within the hospital and the community and the effect that this may have on family/carers.

To provide highly specialist Occupational Therapy that may not only involve physical based assessments but also cognitive/perceptual/visual and upper limb assessments and treatments particularly for those patients recovering in medical high dependency unit and critical care. This would be supported through liaison and joint working of the Neuro and complex care teams.

To demonstrate highly developed clinical reasoning skills to undertake risk assessment for patients, carers and therapists within the hospital and community settings which includes assessment of home environment, both with and without the patient present, assessing both patient and carers needs, identifying and recommending preparations required for discharge planning and continuing care.

To establish and maintain a high standard of clinical expertise and care for the patients under your management, and support junior staff to do likewise.

To demonstrate the ability to assess patient understanding of treatment proposals, gain valid informed consent and have the capacity to work within a legal framework with patients who lack capacity to consent to treatment.

To undertake highly specialist clinical programmes/interventions/treatments in line with identified evidence base and national guidelines assessing the functional ability of the patient, including those of a complex nature. This may involve using standardised or non-standardised assessment tools.

To formulate accurate evaluations and deductions following interpretation and analysis of clinical and non clinical facts in a wide range of complex conditions, recommending the most appropriate interventions.

To evaluate treatments in order to measure progress, ensuring clinical effectiveness and progressing the interventions to a satisfactory closure, setting up reviews as appropriate and using outcome measures.

To educate and train patient/carer/support workers in safe use of specialist equipment recommended e.g. use of hoist to move patient. This involves handling and manoeuvring patients and equipment often in confined spaces.

To use highly developed specialist knowledge to respond to urgent requests from staff, patients and relatives to expedite rapid assessment and discharge planning as required in an acute setting.

To work in a variety of clinical areas, both ward based and home environments in the community where frequent and often highly unpleasant and unexpected exposure to conditions may be encountered, which includes odours, body fluids, human and animal faeces, insect and animal infestations and verbal aggression.

To work on a variety of medical wards and undertake / demonstrate interventions that are in line and appropriate to the evidence base and national guidelines for this cohort of patients. These patients are medically very unwell and require specialist intervention.

To manage and support other members of the team who may lack experience within this area.

COMMUNICATION

Effectively communicate with all patients/ carers to maximise rehabilitation potential and empower therapeutic relationships, decision making in all aspects of Occupational therapy.

Excellent/clear verbal communication, including effective dealing with complex/challenging situations at variety of organisational clinical meetings.

Effective/clear verbal communication at variety or procedural/operational senior meetings, demonstrating / using negotiation and persuasion skills, representing own speciality/team or wider Occupational therapy department.

Effective / clear report writing for all patients on own caseload and supporting junior staff with the same.

Effective / clear communication with all internal and external agencies, e.g. CCGs, community therapy teams to support / facilitate discharge planning.

High skills/ability to adapt communication skills with patients/families/carers with variety communications, cognitive or behaviour impairments.

Skills in cascading operational ideas to members of therapy/MDT teams, demonstrating sensitivity/effectiveness by taking in consideration their prior knowledge/experience of ideas/content

Ability to motivate and persuade others through effective communication.

To effectively liaise with local networks/groups, to share knowledge/experience and implement current / evidence based practice.

The job description is not comprehensive nor exclusive and will be amended as appropriate in conjunction with the post holder.

Person specification

Qualifications

Essential

• Diploma/BSc (hons) in Occupational Therapy
• HPC Registration
• Relevant post graduate training

Desirable

• Masters/specific practice related Masters modules/

Experience

Essential

• Significant post graduate working experience at Band 6 level or above in the designated area
• Evidence of significant knowledge/experience of MDT working within an acute setting
• Experience of service improvements/audits and implementation of recommendations

Personal Qualities

Essential

• Evidence of flexibility and managing change
• Evidence of on-going engagement/interest in wider current health care topics and willingness to promote/present the Occupational therapy profession
• Empowering and encouraging excellent performances within the team and wider organisation through role modelling

Knowledge and Skills

Essential

• Specialist knowledge of designated area
• Significant experience of working with patients within designated area
• Evidence of high level clinical knowledge in assessments and treatment with designated area
• Evidence of leadership and supervisory skills

About the employer

Worcestershire Acute Hospitals NHS Trust is a large acute and specialised hospital trust that provides a range of local acute services to the residents of Worcestershire and more specialised services to a larger population in Herefordshire and beyond.

The Trust operates hospital-based services from three sites in Kidderminster, Redditch and Worcester

Our workforce is more than 7,000 strong, and our caring staff are recognised as providing good and outstanding patient-centred care. You could be one of them.

We are committed to recruiting the best people to work with us. Our values, which we ask all staff to demonstrate, underpin our everyday work and remain firmly at the heart of all we do.

Being open and honest

Ensuring people feel cared for

Showing respect to everyone

We are committed to developing a culture of continuous improvement by embedding the principles of our Improvement System.

We are proud to have achieved Timewise accreditation - this means we are committed to embedding flexible working within our organisation as a flex positive employer.

DBS Checks and Costs

Any applicants who are offered posts requiring a DBS check as part of their employment check will have the cost of this check (at the current rate) deducted from their salary. Please see link in Supporting Information section for more details on DBS checks and costs.