Clinical Director for Advancing Practice

Job overview

We're looking for a part-time (22.5 to 30hpw) Advanced Practice Masters level professional to provide professional oversight of, and strategic input into, Advancing Practice (incorporating Advanced and Enhanced levels of practice) across Derbyshire Community Health Services NHS Foundation Trust (DCHS). You will be responsible for defining, implementing and assuring best practice across DCHS. You'll act as a catalyst for change in practice and service development, supportively challenging professional and organisational boundaries to generate solutions which best meet the needs of professionals and patients in the evolving and increasingly complex community healthcare environment. You'll be expected to promote multi-professional working and Generalism, taking patient-centred approaches to care and supporting strengths based, holistic solutions. Representing DCHS, our practitioners and patients at a Derbyshire level within the Derbyshire Workforce Academy, ensuring that our perspectives, needs and priorities are articulated, supporting and working for the achievement of organisation and system strategies.

Interviews are scheduled for the morning of Wednesday 21st May, in person, at Ripley Hospital.

Main duties of the job

You will work alongside the Clinical Director for Multi-Professional Development to oversee the Multi-Professional Practice Development Team (MPDT) and be a joint budget holder for this team with line management responsibility for the four Development Leads within MPDT who each hold management responsibility for key areas of Advancing Practice across the organisation and wider Derbyshire System.

You will be responsible for providing clinical leadership for Advancing Practitioners across the organisation, who will be working in multiple services, roles and divisions, from Nursing and Allied Health Professional (AHP) backgrounds. This will require communication of complex information regarding service transformation and re-design which may be unwelcome, distressing or contentious and so will need to be conveyed with empathy as well as clarity. Advancing Practice within DCHS involves professionals from a large range of professional backgrounds who undertake a diverse portfolio of roles. Therefore, engagement with them to understand their roles and the challenges experienced will be necessary on a regular basis to ensure that the post holder retains influence and is able to motivate and appropriately challenge as necessary.

Detailed job description and main responsibilities

Leadership - Responsibility for the clinical and professional performance of Advancing Practitioners will be held as part of the lead role and so the post holder will be responsible for assuring the Executive team within DCHS around governance and assurance processes in place to support and protect Advancing Practitioners and patients.

You will undertake leadership of the Senior Leadership Team (SLT) within the Multi-Professional Practice Development Team (MPDT) which will include line management of the members of this team. Through this SLT, the post-holder will gain insight into the work of Advancing Practitioners across DCHS and primary care, understand their development needs and challenges and keep an overview of standards, roles and challenges across the organisation and wider system. This will enable support to clinical practitioners to be directed to where it is most needed, inter-professional learning opportunities maximised, and risks/difficulties escalated within and beyond the organisation.

Patient Care - Direct provision of care is not needed but clinical and therapeutic knowledge and experience is needed of autonomous advanced level clinical practice in a community or primary care setting. Additionally, underlying theory underpinning advanced level practice and working knowledge of healthcare legislation and codes of practice is essential to role.

Strategy - Developing and amending policy, identifying gaps and proposing changes and solutions will be a key element to the role. The post-holder will act as the ‘owner’ of key clinical policy documents as directed by the needs of the organisation, ensuring that these are updated and reflect the needs of the patient and Advancing Practitioner populations.

See Job Description attached for full list of responsibilities.