Early Days in Custody (EDiC) Healthcare Assistant

Job overview

We have an exciting opportunity for a Healthcare Assistant to join our Early Days in Custody Team (EDiC) at HMP Elmley.

The EDiC team will act with the following principles:

Holistic – the EDiC team is multi-disciplinary, drawing on expertise from the other teams within healthcare to provide a knowledgeable and skilled service with the ability to draw upon specialist input rapidly when needed.

Curious – the EDiC team will engage with patients with clinical curiosity – drawing on all the information available to them to understand patient needs. The team will engage where possible with patients’ families/carers to fully understand patient’s needs and assist in helping maintain family relationships.

Prioritising Safety - Keep prisoners safe by identifying and addressing immediate risks for that patient including self-harm, risk of death by suicide, and unmanaged substance misuse dependencies.

Our healthcare team have a real impact on promoting health and well-being to those in prison and we pride ourselves on using skills and strategies that instil hope for patient’s future resettlement back into the community.

Applicants are required to have hospital/primary care experience and be competent at taking blood pressure, ECGs and other observations. Knowledge of wound care is also a requirement for this post.

Important Sponsorship Information for this post: We are currently unable to offer a certificate of sponsorship for this post

Main duties of the job

• As a Healthcare Assistant you will assist in the delivery of high quality nursing care to patients in prison with the support of a registered nurse.

You will be providing physical care to patients according to a written care plan. This will include taking blood pressures, ECG’s, other observations and wound care.

You will be actively engaging with patients in the provision of holistic, needs-led care which will consider the physical, psychological, emotional, social and spiritual needs of the individual.

You will be promoting health and well-being through the delivery of health promotion activities and programmes, responding to patients needs and assisting patients to attain optimal physical health.

Detailed job description and main responsibilities

• Responding to the needs of patients in an honest, non-judgemental, and open manner, which respects the rights of individuals and groups
• Actively engaging with patients in the provision of holistic, needs-led care which considers the physical, psychological, emotional, social, and spiritual needs of individuals and groups
• Delivery of health promotion activities and programmes (including patient self-help programmes) in support of a registered healthcare professional
• Assisting patients to attain optimal physical health and assisting with physical procedures in alongside a registered healthcare professional
• Contributing appropriately to risk assessment and individualised care planning.

Clinical

• To work as directed by a registered nurse, providing physical care to patients according to a written care plan. Typical duties include:

-        Carrying out ECG’s

-        Phlebotomy

-        Basic wound care

-        NEWS2

-        Assess patients using NEWS2

-        Blood glucose monitoring

-        Taking patients weight and other measurements

• Assisting in emergency call outs and instigating emergency procedures when appropriate
• Being second checker on medication rounds
• Ordering and maintaining stock
• Ensuring treatment rooms are clean, tidy and well stocked
• Appropriate escalation to registered healthcare professionals
• Using appropriate templates in SystmOne to document contemporaneously and accurately
• Maintaining patient confidentiality and security
• Adhering to all organisational and prison policies, procedures, and guidelines
• Ensuring good working relationships with patients, carers, relatives, other professionals and prison and healthcare staff
• Developing an understanding of and demonstrating use of clinical supervision to reflect upon and modify practice

Custodial Responsibilities

• Assume personal responsibility for the security of issued keys.
• Understand and comply with prison orders, procedures, and instructions in your area of work.
• Comply with all security requirements.
• Respond to any situation or circumstance that might indicate a threat to security of the establishment or to the safety of an individual, completing Incident, Security, Injury, or other reports as appropriate.
• Report breaches of order and discipline including reporting and recording untoward incidents according to local protocol.
• Contribute to effective risk assessment and management procedures.

Communication

• Routinely communicate effectively with patients and working to overcome barriers to understanding (ie patients with physical or mental health conditions or learning disabilities)
• Develop and maintain inter-disciplinary and inter-agency working with all relevant agencies and organisations as directed.
• Develop and maintain close working partnerships with HMPS, Prison Governors and Heads of Prison Services, Forensic Services, Probation Services, Crown Prosecution Service, Police, and all other non-statutory agencies that are integral to prisoner/patient care and offender management.
• Undertake other duties agreed in conjunction with registered staff, Integrated Primary Healthcare Services.

IMPORTANT INFORMATION, PLEASE READ:

All applicants must be willing to undertake National Security Vetting in order to work in a Prison Setting. This will be completed as part of the pre-employment checks through Oxleas and the prison vetting team.

You will need to provide:

Proof of right to work documentation

Proof of ID, needs to include 1 photographic ID

Proof of address documentation

Non-UK passport holders will need to have correct documentation (right to work in the UK) and a Home office Share code.

Address History:

5 years address history will be needed.

Applicants that are not UK Passport holders who provide less than 5 years UK address history will need to provide a Police Certificate which must be in English from where they resided previously.

Applicants who are UK Passport holders who have lived abroad for a period of more than six months during the last three years will need to provide a certificate of good conduct or an overseas police check in English from the countries resided in or visited.

In order to assist you in obtaining a Police Certificate, guidance can be sought from:https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/criminal-records-checks-for-overseas-applicants

If the country you have resided in is not listed here, you can obtain the necessary information by contacting the relevant Embassy or High Commission for that Country. Their contact details can be found on the Foreign & Commonwealth Office website (http://www.fco.gov.uk/en).