Physician Associate

**Physician Associate (PA) Job Description**

**JOB TITLE: Physician Associate (PA) Primary Care**

**REPORTS TO: THE PARTNERS (Clinical)**

**THE PRACTICE MANAGER (Non-Clinical)**

**HOURS: Full time**

**Job summary**

Mentorship and supervision will be provided by a member of the practice team.

The level and type of supervision will be dependent on the post holder’s skills and knowledge

**1. SCOPE AND PURPOSE OF THE ROLE**
- To deliver a high standard of patient care using advanced autonomous clinical skills with in-depth theoretical knowledge and evidence based practice working under the supervision of a GP
- To manage a clinical caseload and deal with presenting patient’s needs in a primary care setting
- To provide clinical leadership where appropriate within the practice and support other members of the team to develop and maintain clinical skills appropriate to your role and expertise.

**2. KNOWLEDGE, SKILLS AND EXPERIENCE REQUIRED**

See the person specification attached.

**3. PRIMARY DUTIES & AREAS OF RESPONSIBILITY**

**Clinical**

The post holder will under appropriate supervision:

- Provide first point of contact for patients presenting with undifferentiated, undiagnosed problems, utilising history taking, physical examination, problem-solving and clinical decision-making skills to establish a working diagnosis and management plan working in partnership with patients.
- Undertake as agreed surgery based consultations for emergency or routine problems including management of long term conditions. In addition, undertake telephone consultations/home visits and participate in duty rotas where appropriate
- Instigate necessary invasive and non-invasive diagnostic tests or investigations and interpret findings/reports within the scope of a PA’s practice. Discuss the result and implications of laboratory investigations with patients
- Utilise clinical guidelines and promote evidence-based practice
- Offer a holistic service to patients and their families, developing where appropriate an on-going plan of care/support with an emphasis on prevention and self-care
- Refer patients directly to other services or agencies using appropriate referral pathways
- Provide appropriate preventative health care and advice.
- Provide medical support as required to patients
- Ensure safe handover of care within and outside the practice as appropriate
- Work directly with members of the practice primary health care team and support integrated patient centred care through appropriate working with wider primary care / social care networks
- Identify community health needs and participate in the development of patient/family-centred strategies to address them
- Contribute to the practice quality targets to consistently achieve high standards of safe, evidence-based, cost-effective patient care and service delivery
- Act upon alerts (e.g. QOF, local enhanced services etc.) and reminders during

consultation.

**Training and development**
- Participate in continuing professional development opportunities to keep up-to-date with evidence-based knowledge and competence in all aspects of the role to meet clinical governance guidelines for Continuing Professional Development (CPD) and a Personal Development Plan (PDP) utilising a reflective approach to practice. This requires 50 hours of CPD every year: a minimum of 25 hours must be in accredited direct learning programmes (pro-rata)
- Undertake a variety of research and analysis tasks associated with the improvement of clinical care, medical diagnosis and treatment where appropriate using the following means.
- **Audit of clinical practice**:

- Significant event review / root cause analysis
- Review of relevant literature
- Research unusual symptoms and treatment options through consultation with general practitioners, physicians and other specialists
- Promote and support a learning culture within the practice and assist in clinical instruction, mentoring and supervision of medical, nursing or physician associate students and other learners that may periodically be attached to the practice
- Contribute to regular multi-disciplinary and or practice educational meetings
- Work closely with other clinical staff and administrative managers in the setting up and/or improving of practice systems for monitoring/measuring performance against Clinical Governance and Quality Indicator targets
- Provide additional enhanced services to the practices that meet the needs of the practices’ patient population and maximise the income streams to the practice
- Undertake additional training where necessary to provide these enhanced services
- Awareness of and compliance with all relevant practice policies/guidelines, e.g. prescribing, confidentiality, data protection, health and safety, annual QOF Assessment of the Practice / local initiatives
- Meet timescales/deadlines for audits and written returns to ensure that the Practice meets quality standards and receives the designated