Advanced Clinical Practitioner

ADVANCED CLINICAL PRACTITIONER- JOB TITLE: ADVANCED CLINICAL PRACTITIONER
**REPORTS TO: THE PARTNERS (Clinically)**

**THE PRACTICE MANAGER (Administratively)**

**HOURS: 14 hours per week**

**Job Summary**:
The Advanced Clinical Practitioner (ACP) will act autonomously within their professional scope of practice providing care for patients face to face, telephone consultations and home visits.

The postholder will operate within their own sphere of competence and agreed acceptable limits of practice to provide expert professional clinical advice to patients, carers and colleagues, ensuring clinical safety and excellence.

The Advanced Clinical Practitioner will need to prioritise and triage the needs of patients accordingly, making any necessary referrals for investigations in the appropriate manner.

The postholder will use skills, knowledge and competencies as a qualified Advanced Nurse Practitioner in order to be responsible and accountable for managing patient caseloads for treatments, referral, admission and discharging patients as appropriate.

**Job responsibilities**:
**Clinical Nursing Practice**
- Work as part of a multi-disciplinary team to deliver safe and high quality care.
- Carries out clinical nursing practice at an advanced level using expert clinical skills, critical judgements & knowledge to deliver appropriate and safe care.
- Delivery of care in line with NSF, NICE guidelines and evidence-based care
- Triage and treat patients, performing specialist assessment of their needs and make referrals as necessary to other members of the primary and secondary health care teams as appropriate.
- Co-ordinate the planning and delivery of care ensuring patients and carers/relatives are involved.
- Prescribing and reviewing medication that is appropriate to patient needs and in accordance with latest evidence-based practice, national and practice protocols and within the scope of qualified practice.
- Diagnose and manage acute and chronic conditions, including drug and non-drug based treatment methods into a management plan.
- Request diagnostic investigations and interpret within agreed protocols e.g. x-ray, blood tests, scans, etc.
- Assess, diagnose and treat patients in practice premises or their own home who require medical attention and/or refer to appropriate agency.
- Refers patients to other members of the multi-disciplinary practice teams, secondary care organisations and other organisations as necessary.

**Care Management**
- Communicates confidential and sensitive information to patients, relatives and carers in relation to their condition.
- Provide highly specialised care advice beyond the scope of normal Nursing practice e.g. care treatment plans, making referrals as appropriate (including fast track referrals).
- Contribute to local and national practice targets clinical remit e.g. QOF, prescribing incentive scheme, National benchmarking.
- To monitor and meet care outcomes against standards and recommend or initiate changes as necessary.

**Health Improvement**
- Management of health screening programmes and ensures other team members are aware of health priorities and screening objectives and programmes.
- Innovation in practice to meet ongoing demands on the practice’s delivery of care.
- Improve health outcomes for patients by introducing new developments, and can demonstrate them as reports and presentations where appropriate.
- Supports practitioners in reporting the practice population to promote health improvement and disease prevention.
- Makes referrals to appropriate agencies (statutory and voluntary) where necessary

Administration and professional responsibilities
- Produce accurate, contemporaneous and complete records of patient consultation, consistent with legislation, policies and procedures
- Participate in the administrative and professional responsibilities of the practice team
- Accurate and legible notes of all consultations and treatments are recorded in the patient’s notes
- Ensure clinical systems kept up to date, recording and/or amending accurate details
- Ensure appropriate items of service claims are made accurately, reporting any problems to the practice administrator
- Ensure accurate completion of all necessary documentation associated with patient health care and registration with the practice
- Attend and participate in practice meetings as required

**Training and personal development**
- Maintain up to date skills and knowledge, maintaining awareness of professional issues at an advanced level.
- Training needs will be monitored by yearly appraisal and will be in accordance with practice requirements. Personal development will be encouraged and supported by the practice.
- Assess effectiveness of care delivery through self-reflection and peer review, as well as benchmarking and formal evaluation.
- Contribute to the identification and assessment of learning needs of staff and other professionals and assist in planning effective programmes o