Parkinsons Disease Nurse Specialist

To lead, provide and continue to develop a nurse-led Parkinsons Disease nurse specialist service across Warwickshire within various locality clinics and hospital settings. The post holder will take direct referrals from General Practitioners, Neurologists and other health care professionals, ensuring that all referrals meet the service criteria and have confirmed Parkinsons Diagnosis.

The post holder will be responsible for managing a caseload and ensure patients are discharged from the service optimised on evidence-based treatments. The post holder will be an expert practitioner providing advice and support to patients and members of the multi-disciplinary team.

To work as an autonomous, advanced nurse practitioner, utilising advanced clinical assessment and history taking skills in order to assess and provide individualised treatment plans for patients with confirmed Parkinsons disease.

Plan, initiate and co-ordinate ongoing assessment and monitoring of complex treatment plans aimed at improving prognosis, improving symptoms, reducing hospital admissions and facilitating discharge.

The setting up and running of a nurse led clinic in various community locations.

Ensure all referrals are triaged and allocated appointments in a local clinic based on clinical need and urgency.

Independent non-medical prescribing where appropriate, ensuring appropriate monitoring and response to all treatments prescribed. Ensuring prescribing is within national and European treatment guidelines.

Request, reviews and interpret the results of key investigations and make recommendations to the General Practitioner or prescribe the changes in medications as a result of the key investigations.

Ensure all assessments are documented and communicated to the General Practitioner and in particular if medications are prescribed or doses altered to ensure continuity of care and ensure patient safety.

Apply clinical judgement in situations where no guidelines exist. Seek guidance from Consultant colleagues when beyond own scope of professional practice.

Frequently breaking bad news regarding poor prognosis, discussing a clinical deterioration and the likelihood of pending death. Dealing independently with distressed patients and relatives, utilising advanced communication skills. Managing patient and relatives unpredictable responses to grief and bad news.

Initiate conversations around end of life planning and patient wishes regarding resuscitation for completion of a Respect Form, and advance care planning. Ensuring any decisions made with the patient are documented according to trust guidelines and communicated to the multidisciplinary team.

Deliver evidence-based compassionate care which places the patient at the heart of practice. Care will be responsive to individual needs and reflect current national guidelines.

Make direct referrals to other teams and specialists as required ensuring optimal care for the patient.

To carry out comprehensive assessment at an advanced level utilising critical analysis to inform clinical judgement and develop care plans that optimise treatment and client-centred outcomes.

This will include history taking, systematic physical examination, and the collection of baseline data and the identification of risk to develop an individualised treatment plan.

Analyse signs and symptoms, laboratory tests and other measures of function, in formulating a diagnosis.

Independent nurse prescribing skills with medicines management used in collaboration with appropriate members of the multi-disciplinary team to plan and implement treatment for changes in the health status of the patient.

Management plans will involve the patient in the decision making process based on needs, preferences and choices with the resource available to include preventative and anticipatory care. End of life care planning to include family and significant others.

Make direct referrals and order investigations as necessary following agreed protocols and pathways of care, ensuring documentation adheres to Trust and NMC guidelines. Ensuring that all member of the multidisciplinary team involved in the care have been updated.

Identify patients who will benefit from joint case-management to promote joint working with place based teams, community and primary care colleagues to optimise outcomes.

Arrange and facilitate regular MDT meetings to ensure collaborative communication and planning to meet the needs of the individual.

Be accessible to colleagues/providers for communication across a range of health and social care settings to enhance patient experience.

Ensure a robust process is in place to review care/treatment plans and undertake regular medication reviews.

Working collaboratively with GPs and practice nurses to provide support and advice, run clinics in the community setting and support with the annual review of patients the caseload

Monitor indicators of Parkinsons disease, anticipating possible decline and proactively manage this to enhance wellbeing, maintain independence and prevent inappropriate hospital admissions.

Build relationships across professional and organisational boundaries, anticipating boundaries whist working towards ways to improve communication.

To provide learning opportunities for students/colleagues and other health care professionals.

Come and join a Trust rated Outstanding by the CQC. South Warwickshire University NHS Foundation Trust have been rated as outstanding following our latest inspection by the CQC and we are recruiting new staff to come and help us improve even further. In addition our staff survey results have placed us 4th in the country for recommended place to work.

We provide services across Warwickshire and beyond ranging from Hospitals in Warwick, Stratford-Upon-Avon, Royal Leamington Spa and Shipston-on Stour to Community Services across the county. We are a progressive, expanding organisation with great ambition around improving quality, integrating pathways and delivering high levels of productivity.Our values can be summed up in one sentence. We are 'Trusted to provide safe, inclusive, effective and compassionate care'. Throughout the recruitment process you will be asked to think about how you demonstrate these values and how they impact on your work. It doesn't matter what role you do, whether it is patient facing or not, we are all working in the same way with our values at the core.

As part of our commitment to Equality, Diversity and Inclusion we encourage all applicants to complete a short survey. This can be accessed via the link below:

https: //forms.office.com/e/ahWY3eAGM2

We appreciate you completing the survey.

Qualifications

Desirable: - Recognised teaching qualification; - Advanced communication skills training; - Leadership course

Experience

Desirable: - Managing projects; - Membership of specialist interest groups related to Parkinsons Disease; - Managing a budget; - Experience of recruitment process

Skills

Desirable: - Undertaken clinical and nursing research

Personal Qualities

Essential: - Creative thinker; - Diplomatic

Other

Essential: - Flexible and positive approach to work