FY3 Doctor in Virtual Hospital

Job overview

The Virtual Acute Care Unit (VACU) team at the Royal Berkshire Foundation Trust (RBFT) is forward thinking and dynamic, always willing to embrace new ways of working that benefit our patients. This is an exciting opportunity to help to continue the development and management of the RBFT’s VHS directorate.

The services operates from 08:00 - 20:00hrs across 7 days, the roster will reflect the need to provide cover during theses times with an approximately 1:3.5 - 1:4 weekend cover.

The successful candidates will support the management of patients remotely in a place they call home as opposed to within an onsite in-patient bed.

This care and management will be delivered across three models:

• Virtual Management - With the use of remote monitoring equipment, telephony systems, remote assessment and management.
• Face to Face - Through the dedicated VACU's clinical space, when the patient needs necessitate physical examinations, diagnostics & imagining, as well as treatments such as invasive line placement and IV therapies.
• VACU@home  - As we continue to develop, we have successfully piloted our VACU@home service that allows for delivery of care within the patients own home, this remains part of our road map.

Main duties of the job

The average day consists of arriving at the VACU on the Royal Berkshire Hospital site, where following the operational meeting & handover, an allocated caseload of patients will be assigned to each team member. The post holders will work within the multi-disciplinary team, consisting of VACU Consultants and speciality teams, Physician Associates, Nursing Staff, dedicated Pharmacist and Clinical Administrators, to provide the service.

The post holder will:

• take part in the management of patients that meet the eligibility criteria to be managed by the VACU service.
• work across all 7 days of the week on site at the Royal Berkshire Hospital.
• support the development of the VACU across care pathways at the RBFT, ensuring safe and high quality care is provided.
• support the patient admission process by helping with monitoring equipment deployments, educating patients about how to monitor their observations, symptoms and how to escalate or inform the team of changes.
• utilise systems and processes, including remote prescribing and the electronic patient record to coordinate care, complete treatment and effectively discharge back to community services.
• actively be involved in clinical governance, patient safety and quality audit.

Detailed job description and main responsibilities

PRINCIPLE RESPONSIBILITIES

General

• Ensure that patient experience, patient safety and clinical effectiveness are of the highest standard, meeting national and local outcome measures and standards.
• Role model Trust leadership behaviours.
• Cultivate an open & honest culture where people feel able to raise concerns & share good practice.
• Ensure effective implementation of all Trust policies, procedures and standards within the wards/departments.
• Ensure the clinical area practice within Data Protection/ Confidentiality/ Caldicott principles.
• Work collaboratively with clinical and non-clinical colleagues across the Trust to ensure effective and efficient delivery of services.
• Ensure that effective communication processes are in place.
• Contribute to the development of a high performance culture for the directorate.
• To identify modernising opportunities to utilise digital opportunities to enhance care, patient empowerment and communication.

Clinical and Quality

• Supports the Trust capacity and flow processes to ensure patients access the care needed at the appropriate time and receive their care in the right clinical setting.
• Actively support the process to discharge patients safely and timely, which requires helping ward teams to set patients up with remote monitoring kit and explaining to patients how to use it.
• To review VACU patients with daily contact through the most appropriate medium, including patient symptom assessment and observations. To interpret findings and form a list of differential diagnoses and a treatment plan.
• To undertake a full virtual clerking of patients on admission to the VACU service, ensuring patients have the necessary information and target readings upon transfer to our Wards.
• Communicate with primary care services to ensure continuity of care and coordinate readmission of patients who are deteriorating in the community.
• Maintains timely, accurate and appropriate documentation, whilst communicating the outcome of clinical encounters to GPs and other health professional in a timely manner.
• Foster good relationships by working collaboratively with the multidisciplinary team.
• Close interaction and care coordination with maternity triage service for the management of pregnant women.
• Instructing and counselling patients & their relatives with regard to mental and physical health issues.
• Supporting and contributing to timely discharge planning including completing discharge summaries and support optimising bed capacity.
• Work to improve the quality of patient experience within the directorate.
• Participating in writing up service evaluation results
• Contribute to achieving and maintaining financial sustainability of the VACU.
• Identify opportunities to improve quality and deliver best value for the VACU service.

Teaching and Training

• Participate in the development and expansion of the service including:

• Attending teaching and developing skills on literature review. Engaging in collecting data and patient feedback. Proactive role in developing pathways, including literature research.
• Attending teaching and developing skills on literature review.
• Engaging in collecting data and patient feedback.
• Proactive role in developing pathways, including literature research.

Personal Development

• Takes responsibility for attending statutory and mandatory training in accordance with the Trusts’ training needs analysis and mandatory training matrix. Makes effective use of e-learning opportunities to achieve compliance with mandatory training.
• Takes responsibility for own continuing professional development and performance, maintaining own portfolio in accordance with Professional body revalidation requirements. Is able to identify own development needs in relation to current practice and future plans, setting personal development objectives.