Specialist Physiotherapist

• To be professionally and legally responsible for own practice and accountable for all aspects of treatment delivered to the client to ensure a high standard of clinical care.
• To work as an autonomous lone practitioner, case managing clients in the community and co-ordinating their care.
• To carry out timely assessment, treatment, goal setting and rehabilitation of community clients to prevent admission or re-admission to hospital or long term domiciliary care and to facilitate early discharge home from hospital.
• To be competent in using a wide variety of specialised assessment and treatment approaches with adults with a range of conditions, including those with severe physical and cognitive impairment or multiple diagnoses in order to formulate treatment plans, maximise rehabilitation potential and set goals.
• Using advanced clinical reasoning skills, analyse and interpret complex assessment findings, from both standardised and non-standardised assessments in order to formulate an accurate diagnosis and prognosis.
• To be able to analyse and interpret complex clinical and social information from a range of sources.
• To ascertain rehabilitation potential of clients following assessment and devise both uni-disciplinary and multi-disciplinary rehabilitation goals which address clinical rehabilitation needs, client choice, service criteria, urgency of need and clinical risk.
• To be able to identify significant health changes that would warrant medical intervention and liaise with the relevant practitioner in a timely manner.
• To educate clients, carers and family members on the clients medical condition, prognosis and physical management encouraging their involvement and actively promoting healthy lifestyles.
• To implement a range of interventions including, but not limited to, physical and cognitive rehabilitation in functional tasks, work and leisure.
• To undertake patient moving and handling assessments, make recommendations and provide training to informal carers when required.
• To provide recommendations for posture and seating, minor home adaptations, and specialist housing.
• Assess clients needs for any rehabilitative equipment and aids to improve safety and functioning within the home as part of a Trusted Assessor role.
• To train RSWs, therapy assistants, students, informal carers, family members in the use of appropriate equipment.
• Demonstrate the safe use of equipment to external providers of care where appropriate.
• Assess and manage clinical, physical and/or environmental risk.
• To adhere to incident reporting procedures and to support RSWs to do likewise.
• To act as lead health professional for clients when required. This may include initiating and co-ordinating multi-disciplinary/multi-agency meetings, liaising with clients/families and onward referrals to other professionals/agencies.
• To identify significant health changes that would warrant medical intervention and liaise with the relevant practitioner.
• To liaise with the multidisciplinary team and identify when referral on to other professions within the team or outside agencies is indicated. This may include making recommendations on package of care needs when appropriate.
• To maintain accurate and up to date individual client records and ensure safekeeping and confidentiality of these records (including use of the Trust electronic patient records system) in line with Trust, legal and professional requirements.
• To evaluate client intervention and progress in a timely manner using appropriate outcome measures and evaluation tools. To adapt care plans accordingly and delegate tasks appropriately to RSWs.To discharge clients in a timely manner having reviewed the clients needs and goals, making appropriate onward referrals where necessary.
• To participate in the duty therapy rota for the single point of access, responsible for triage and prioritisation of new referrals.
• To respect an individuals ethnicity and cultural and religious beliefs.

Essential

• Significant broad based post registration experience at band 5 or above
• Experience of working in an adult rehabilitation team environment
• Experience of working within an MDT

Desirable

• Experience of working within the community
• Experience of direct supervision of more junior staff
• Experience of supervision of pre-registration students
• Experience of clinical audit, benchmarking and evaluation of services

Essential

• Good organisational, time management and prioritisation skills
• Demonstrable Skills in assessing patients with complex conditions, identifying the problems and selecting and implementing the relevant treatment/management programme
• Developed skills in rehabilitation
• Excellent communication skills and ability to communicate sensitive and complex information within different settings, good negotiation skills.
• Understanding of issues related to working within a multi-cultural community
• An understanding of and commitment to maintaining client confidentiality
• Understanding of manual handling and Health and Safety issues related to community working
• Knowledge and understanding of clinical governance and evidence based practice
• Ability to demonstrate skill-sharing and collaborative working at a variety of levels
• Able to manage own caseload and work autonomously in the community and domiciliary settings
• Ability to seek specialist advice as appropriate
• Ability to analyse and understand complex information and communicate appropriately
• Able to demonstrate an understanding of the implications of disability on peoples' lives