Physician Associate

**Closing Date - 19th February 2023**

**Job summary**

West Wakefield Primary Care Network are looking to develop a team of qualified Physician Associates to work across our 5 Practices providing excellent, high quality care to our patients, You will be part of a bigger team comprising a wide range of clinical and allied health care professionals who provide mutual support.

You will work both within a GP surgery to delivery acute and chronic disease management as well as delivering proactive and preventative medicine for patients in care homes and at home. As part of the wider multidisciplinary team, we envisage you will be involved in acute visits, frailty management, chronic disease management, medication reviews, advanced care planning and palliation, whilst working within your scope of practice.

There will be opportunities to take part in quality improvement projects, and undertake training to develop your skills.

**Main duties of the job**

You will be responsible for the provision of a clinical service, working as part of the practice multidisciplinary team, working autonomously in the practices, care homes and at patients' homes, providing a range of services including but not limited to:
Provide first point of contact for patients presenting with undifferentiated, undiagnosed problems, utilising history-taking, physical examinations and clinical decision-making skills to establish a working diagnosis and management plan in partnership with the patient.

Examine, assess and diagnose patients and provide clinical care/ management as required.

Review, analyse and action diagnostic test results. Collect/request pathology specimens as required.

Support patients in the use of their prescribed medicines or over the counter medicines (within own scope of practice).

Deliver integrated patient centred-care through appropriate working with the wider multi-disciplinary team and social care networks.

Ensure continuity of care, arranging follow-up consultations or reviews as necessary.

Provide routine care to patients as required in accordance with clinical based evidence, NICE and the NSF.

Utilise clinical guidelines, promote evidence-based practice and partake in clinical audits, significant event reviews and other research and analysis tasks.

Ensure that they adhere to the relevant patient group directives and local clinical pathways at all times.

**About us**

West Wakefield is a Primary Care Network of 5 practices; we are a team of forward-thinking General Practices covering circa 68,000 patients in the West Wakefield area. Our aim is to create a diverse team that support one another, have opportunities to share learning and engage in professional development, while being integrated into the practices.

We have a diverse team who all deliver excellent patient care working innovatively and collaboratively with colleagues in Practice, Community Pharmacy, the Voluntary and Community Sector as well as statutory organisations including the ICB, and Council etc. Our team comprises Care Co-ordinators, Health and Wellbeing Coaches, Social Prescribing Link Workers, Nurse Associates, Paramedics, and Occupational Therapists.

Conexus Healthcare Limited is the Confederation for general practice in Wakefield, we have four areas of work.
- Delivery of high-quality public facing Health and Wellbeing services across the Wakefield District_
- Delivery of Training, Development and Consultancy support across the United Kingdom_
- Supporting Our Practices and Primary Care Networks (PCNs)_
- Providing a voice and influence for General Practice in the Health and Care System_

Built within primary care, for primary care, Conexus Healthcare Limited works with local GPs and their practices to champion investment in and deliver effective primary care at scale. By connecting in this way, we can care effectively for over 370,000 local people together.

**Job description**

**Job responsibilities**

Please see the attached job description and person specification for further details of the responsibilities of this role.

**Person Specification**

**Qualifications**

**Essential**
- Post graduate diploma or degree (physician associate)

**Desirable**
- Member of Physician Associate Managed Voluntary Register

**Experience**

**Essential**
- Experience of working in a primary care environment
- Experience of working as a physician associate
- Experience in triage
- Experience of dealing with a range of clinical conditions

**Other**

**Essential**
- Flexibility to work outside of core office hours
- Disclosure Barring Service (DBS) check
- Occupational Health Clearance

**Clinical Knowledge and Skills**

**Essential**
- Ability to effectively triage, assess and diagnose
- Wound care
- ECGs
- Chaperone procedure
- Requesting pathology tests and processing the results, advising patients accordingly
- Diabetes
- Hypertension
- Asthma
- CHD
- Understand the importance of evidence-based practice
- Broad knowledge of clinical govern