Band 7 Clinical Specialist Occupational Therapist - Rheumatology

Job overview

BAND 7 CLINICAL SPECIALIST OCCUPATIONAL THERAPIST - RHEUMATOLOGY SERVICE

Substantive | 30 hours per week

Come and join our forward thinking, committed and driven Integrated Therapies and Dietetics Department who constantly put patient care and your professional and personal development to the forefront.  We are looking for a positive, proactive clinician with specialist skills in the field of Rheumatology to help us build a strong future for therapy and increase the profile of Occupational Therapy within this specialism.  You will have your own outpatient clinical caseload, providing advanced specialist assessments and interventions to a range of patients with rheumatological conditions.  You will also provide clinical supervision to students as well as assist in their training and development.  You will play an integral role in service development and work closely with Professional Leads for Occupational Therapy to promote and improve the service.  We are an integrated department inclusive of occupational therapists, physiotherapists, dietitians and assistants and have positive relationships between the different disciplines and teams.  Our core hours are 8.00am-4.00pm but we can be flexible.  Onsite parking/car shares are available, and a driving licence is essential.

Main duties of the job

As a Band 7 Occupational Therapist, you will be responsible for your own complex caseload consisting of outpatients with a range of rheumatological conditions.  Good prioritisation, organisational and time management skills will be needed to balance clinical and non-clinical duties.  You will be responsible for ensuring the use of advanced effective assessment skills to identify appropriate patients and to formulate, implement and evaluate individualised treatment and rehabilitation plans, some of which will be specialist in nature, based on expert analytical and clinical reasoning skills.  You will need advanced communication skills to ensure a successful multidisciplinary approach to patient care and will be in regular discussions with patients, carers, JPUH colleagues, and community partners on therapy plans.  You will be responsible for other non-clinical duties such as training/supervision of students, department in-service training and training for other professionals.  You will be key to being actively involved in the measurement and evaluation of your work and current practices through the use of evidence-based practice projects, audit and outcome measures.  Through this being able to make recommendations for and assist with change.

Detailed job description and main responsibilities

Please see the attached Job Description for more details of the main duties and responsibilities of the role.

• To be professionally and legally responsible and accountable for all aspects of own work, including management of patients in your care
• To accept clinical responsibility for a designated caseload of rheumatology patients, and to organise this efficiently and effectively with regard to clinical priorities and use of time.  To ensure a high standard of clinical care for the patients under your management
• To undertake a comprehensive specialist assessment of patients, including those with a complex presentation, using investigative and analytical skills
• To formulate an individualised occupational therapy management and/or treatment  plan using clinical reasoning skills and utilising a wide range of treatment skills and options in order to formulate a specialised programme of care, including psycho-social analysis, clinical joint examination, hand assessment and orthotics, joint protection, relaxation therapy and cognitive behavioural therapy
• To provide spontaneous and planned advice, teaching and instruction to relatives, carers and other professionals.  To promote understanding of the aims of occupational therapy and to ensure a consistent approach to patient care
• To take a lead role in training, supervising and performance management of undergraduate/MSc students and other therapy staff where appropriate
• To provide training within the Rheumatology Service to medical students from the University of East Anglia where applicable and at the request of other professionals within the Rheumatology Service
• To communicate effectively with patients and carers to maximise rehabilitation potential and to ensure understanding of condition.  Communication skills of persuasion, motivation, explanation, and gaining informed consent will be used with a variety of patients.  Barriers to effective communication will regularly be evident, e.g. sensory loss, pain, fear, severe psycho-social problems
• To assess capacity, gain valid informed consent and have the ability to work within a  legal  framework with patients who lack capacity to consent to treatment, and support other staff to do likewise
• To lead on the oversight, updating, developing and review of the digital and technology within the department, for example the Inflammatory Arthritis Advice App

Please watch the following videos for an insight into our Integrated Therapies Department:

Landscape version:  https://youtu.be/tklpzav7UrU.

Portrait version:  https://youtube.com/shorts/U4lwU9T1wKA?feature=share