Senior Health Care Support Worker (SHCSW)

Job overview

Plymouth Hospitals is a large acute trust in the Southwest of England, situated on the Devon and Cornwall border and provides perioperative care for elective and emergency patients across the region. The hospital is a designated Trauma Centre and tertiary referral centre for Neurological and Cardiac patients. The trust is a teaching hospital with close links to the Peninsula Medical School and the University of Plymouth.

Main Recovery has 14 bays and runs 24 hours a day, 7 days a week.  The Recovery area covers acutely ill patients from a vast array of surgical specialities and is part of the Hospital ‘escalation’ plan.  This means we can care for HDU patients, as well as our own post-surgery patients.  Within our normal working day we accommodate 17 theatres worth of patients include elective and emergency specialities. Out of hours we recover all the emergency surgery patients apart from Cardiothoracic.  This means we have a vast amount of acute medicine skills and experience to draw on within our team.

Unfortunately this post does not meet the latest thresholds for international recruitment and sponsorship

***Preference will be given to internal Trust staff, as well as ‘Priority’ and 'At Risk' status including NHS At Risk staff throughout Devon who are able to display recent relevant experience as dictated by the Person Specification.***

Main duties of the job

The Senior HCA within Recovery is a member of the multi-disciplinary team whose function is to assist the team in the delivery of a high standard of patient care.  This will involve undertaking basic and extended skills with indirect supervision.

Competent support of registered staff to provide quality patient focused care using extended skills gained from achieving a relevant Level 3 Healthcare NVQ/HCA qualification.

Contribute to resource management. Must be able able to multi task and be IT literate, as you will be using multiple Trust IT systems as part of your role.

In addition the post holder will be expected to achieve additional skills at NVQ/HCA Level 3 that are specific to the post.

Detailed job description and main responsibilities

• 1.      Obtain consent prior to giving care in accordance with Trust policies. 2.      Competently undertake delegated duties in line with patient care plans. 3.      Ability to use your knowledge and experience to undertake non-routine duties and an understanding to take decisions within your area of responsibility. 4.      To carry out a range of (limited) clinical duties with minimal / no supervision, including for example, blood pressure monitoring, oxygen saturation levels, body temperature, pulse rate and respiration rate, glucose monitoring, collection and testing of urine samples / faecal samples / sputum samples and wound swabs ensuring delivery of high-quality patient care at all times. NB: this list is not exhaustive and will vary depending on area of work. 5.      Participate in patient assessment providing high quality holistic patient care and escalating concerns about patients to other clinical staff. 6.      Practice safe standards of care to patients following Trust guidelines and policies and be able to concentrate for periods throughout the day with occasional interruptions. 7.      Provide clinical care in accordance with the infection prevention and health and safety policies and procedures. 8.      Maintain the work environment in line with Trust infection control and patient safety policies. 9.      Utilising skills to actively facilitate self-care and independence with patients. 10.   Promote health education specific to the clinical area and in line with national and local policies. For further details please see the attached JD & PS