Patient & Family Liaison Clinician

Job Title: Patient & Family Liaison Clinician

Location: Between North Weald and Earls Colne

Contract type: Permanent

**Salary**: Equivalent to NHS Band 7

Hours: 37.5 hours per week

About us:
Essex & Herts Air Ambulance, unlike NHS emergency services, is a charity. The free life-saving service is provided 24/7 by helicopters and by rapid response vehicles.

Each critical care team consists of a pilot and co-pilot, a pre-hospital care doctor and a critical care paramedic.

They can be rushed to the scene with life-saving support equipment to deliver advanced clinical care, usually only available in the hospital emergency department.

Once stabilised, the patient will be conveyed to the most appropriate hospital by air or land.

Without access to National Lottery funding and with only limited support from Government, we rely upon the generosity and goodwill of the people and businesses of Essex and Hertfordshire to remain operational and keep saving lives we can’t fly without you

Job purpose:
The purpose of this role in to deliver compassionate, effective and high-quality support and guidance for our patients and families, in the time that follows the initial phase of acute illness and injury.

Summary of duties and responsibilities:

- To enable, and advocate for, the delivery of compassionate care at all phases of the patient journey.
- To be part of a team of clinicians who offer support to patients after their admission to hospital. This will involve answering questions about the pre-hospital care that was provided. This is also likely to include regular visits to clinical areas where our patients are being treated.
- To bring your experience and wisdom to the adding of value to the patient and family experience, beyond that which we provide at the scene.
- To manage a case load of patients and families independently, providing support for an indeterminate time period following the initial incident, depending on needs. This may involve visits to patients’ homes or rehabilitation units.
- Where a patient has not survived, to support families and friends of the deceased. This will often involve sharing details of the care that EHAAT teams provided, filling the vacuum of information that often leads to distress for families.
- To advocate for patient dignity throughout your interactions with our clinical team and to feed-back patient experiences with the intention of educating our clinicians.
- To Integrate the lessons learned from our patients and families back into the care we provide future patients through the education, training and governance offered to our clinical teams.
- Work with other services such as police liaison teams, Fire and EEAST, to achieve the best model of support possible for families.
- With your team, to ensure a regular timetabled attendance at case review meetings so that there is the most impactful representation of the patient and family viewpoint as possible
- Be present for, and arrange visits for patients and their families, to our operational bases. These will often be private visits, enabling patients to meet their clinicians. For visits where patients and families would like to support our charity vision, to work closely with the charity team to help deliver these visits in as professional a manner as possible
- Be a point of contact with all former patients and their families, whether through feedback forms, social media communications, general enquires or contact with fundraising teams or volunteers.
- Build relationships with our regional external stakeholders and national patient voice forums. To bring the best possible professional network together for each of your patients, their families, and for our team.
- To complete EHAAT electronic patient records from a Patient and family liaison perspective.
- To help with the induction of clinical and charity staff into the team, through the lens of patient and family liaison
- To undertake a commitment to ongoing professional improvement.
- To advocate for the precious values and regulations related to patient consent
- Have an awareness of the research undertaken by our teams, contributing where appropriate.
- Contribute to an extensive education programme for our clinicians.
- Ensure that any opportunities for patients and their families to support our charity are supported, while giving primacy to care and recovery.
- To maintain a constant surveillance for safeguarding of adults and children, whatever their circumstances might be.
- To support the EHAAT charity in its mission, values and objectives while giving primacy to care and recovery.

Person Specification

Essential:

- A minimum of 5 years’ experience within an acute patient facing role, in areas such as ED, acute coronary care, trauma or critical care.
- Excellent interpersonal skills, with specific examples of delivering compassionate care
- Evidence of a portfolio of clinical, professional development consistent with the role
- Strong verbal and written