Children's Physiotherapist

Job overview

This role is a frontline clinical role delivering specialist physiotherapy assessment and intervention to babies and children in the community in the London Borough of Haringey.  The post holder will deliver care to children and young people from  infancy up to 18 years of age in a range of settings. You will work as part of a physiotherapy team which sits within a wider MDT and multiagency framework.

The team takes pride in enabling children to achieve better outcomes by delivering evidence based and compassionate care.

Interviews for this post will be face to face .

Main duties of the job

• To provide assessment and physiotherapy intervention to children and young people in a range of settings in collaboration with the child, family and other professionals.
• To document patient care accurately and in accordance with professional and trust guidelines.
• To safeguard children within the scope of the role.
• To engage in quality improvement
• To engage in CPD to improve your own practice and the service offer.
• To train and develop other staff.
• To engage in research where appropriate,
• To provide cover when other members of the team are unavailable.
• To report incidents and near misses in line with trust processes.

Detailed job description and main responsibilities

• To carry a personal clinical caseload maintaining a high level of professional competence and demonstrate developing clinical expertise. To undertake comprehensive assessment of children with complex developmental, neurological and specialist orthopaedic conditions.  Investigative and analytical skills should be used to formulate individualised management and treatment plans incorporating a wide range of treatment skills and using clinical reasoning. To provide physiotherapy treatment of children using clinical reasoning and utilising a wide range of treatment skills and options and provide ongoing treatment programmes. To provide specialist advice and assessment for the provision of appropriate aids and equipment and monitor their use. To administer specialist standardised and structured assessments, interpret results and contribute to accurate diagnosis and prognosis within the team responsible for the child’s care. To assess and treat individual children with complex needs, in their homes and school or clinic setting, working as part of the multi-disciplinary team, and liaising closely with education staff and parents/carers. To use a range of communication strategies to overcome barriers to communicating e.g. language, communication difficulties or cognitive impairment and English as a second language, to engage and motivate the child and their family/carers in their Physiotherapy treatment. To attend meetings necessary to co-ordinate multi-agency care of the child e.g. transition planning, child protection. To make referrals to other services as required to meet the child or family’s identified needs. To keep accurate and adequate records, and write reports and discharge summaries as required, ensuring that confidentiality and information-sharing standards are met as in Trust and professional standards. To communicate complex clinical information and care plans to parents, carers, and staff in other agencies, for them to understand and carry out effective treatment or management of the child. To establish relationships with community services and facilities, and to assist children and their families to make links with resources available to them. To work effectively with clients, carers, and colleagues around individual case management, providing advice, guidance and support as necessary and involving them in the planning and prioritisation of care wherever possible. To reflect on clinical practice; adequately identifying strengths & needs of clients, reviewing their response to therapy and providing evidence of sound clinical judgement. To monitor and review the progress of children on caseload and facilitate the development or modification of packages of care / targets as appropriate using evaluation/outcome measurement tools. To adapt practice to meet individual client/carer’s circumstances, considering cultural and linguistic backgrounds. To produce accurate, & detailed reports, therapy programmes, advice and information as necessary in a timely manner. To respond to the requirements of the 1996 Education Act, The Children’s and Families Act 2014 and the SEND Code of Practice (2015), by completing written advice for children who may have Special Educational Needs. To refer children to other Health, Education or Social Services professionals as necessary. To undertake home visits, as necessary, in compliance with Home Visiting Safety Policy

COMMUNICATION AND RELATIONSHIP SKILLS:

• To be able to gather information that may be sensitive or complex and analyse it as part of a full assessment of a client’s strengths and difficulties. To work closely with clients and carers using empathy, tact, reassurance and active listening to complete assessments, discuss results, and agree treatment options. To develop skills in motivating clients/carers to engage in the therapeutic process. To negotiate and manage conflict effectively in a range of settings, with support and supervision from line manager. To deal with initial complaints sensitively, avoiding escalation where possible To form effective therapeutic relationships with clients and/or carers who may be under stress and/or having challenging behaviour. To provide training to a variety of audiences on aspects of physiotherapy.

KNOWLEDGE, TRAINING & EXPERIENCE:

• To identify own training needs as part of the Professional Development Review and in supervision with the Band 7 physiotherapist. To keep up to date with current clinical developments through reading, attendance at courses, meetings and Specific Interest Groups To attend clinical supervision To maintain up to date professional registration at all times.