Highly Specialist Physiotherapist

Job overview

The post holder will work as an integral part of this team responding to the needs of the service and its stakeholders and taking a leading role in team developments and day to day running of the department in the Acute and Crisis directorate.

The post holder will be based on Holbrook Ward, Woodlands Unit, and Oaktree Lodge at Memorial Hospital, both older adult wards, as well as working with working age adults across the Acute & Crisis Directorate.

Main duties of the job

The Older People’s Mental Health directorate provides assessment and intervention to those primarily aged over 65 with a mental health diagnosis.  This can be functional and/or organic in nature.  There are 4 wards within the directorate.  Holbrook provides specialist dementia care, Oaktree Lodge provides continuing care support to those with mental health conditions and Shepherdleas and Scadbury provide acute care predominantly with functional diagnoses.  The physiotherapy staff provides a full assessment for all service users on the wards and identify appropriate intervention plans.

The post holder will work as an integral part of this team responding to the needs of the service and its stakeholders and taking a leading role in team developments and day to day running of the department.

Detailed job description and main responsibilities

• To provide a high standard of physiotherapy to inpatients on the older people's wards as an autonomous practitioner. The post holder will be responsible for their own caseload providing advanced clinical assessment, diagnosis, planning treatment and appropriate discharge from the service adapting practice to suit the needs of the patients many of whom may have acute, complex and/or chronic presentations
• To have an extensive knowledge of physiotherapy in older people mental health settings, with a special interest in falls management
• To develop partnership working within the multi-disciplinary team and wider working environment.  Actively work to maintain these relationships and be influential within them
• To supervise, appraise  junior physiotherapy and support staff working in this area in the assessment, diagnosis, treatment and management of patients
• To co-ordinate the placements of physiotherapy students allocated to the Older People’s Mental Health Directorate, assisting the clinical educators as required in the supervision, education and assessment of therapy students.
• To develop care protocols/packages relating to specialist area in liaison with ward managers and Directorate Allied Health Professional Lead to improve patient care e.g. development of care pathways.
• To take the lead in the development of policies and protocols as negotiated with the clinical team manager.
• To assume delegated tasks as requested by the Service Managers, ward managers and Directorate AHP Lead.
• To use specialist knowledge to inform service/policy developments as appropriate
• To contribute to the planning, co-ordinating, delivering and evaluating of the Physiotherapy Service provided to inpatients across the wards and on a day-to-day basis.
• To be an active member of local leadership teams to focus on service development throughout the directorate.
• Contribute towards the management of risk within the department including review of policies and standards
• To lead on incident investigations as deemed appropriate by Directorate Management Team.  This would include serious incident investigations into falls on inpatient units.
• To attend/ contribute to directorate and trust Patient Safety Boards