Specialist Physiotherapist

Job overview

We're looking for an enthusiastic and dedicated Physiotherapist to join our vibrant and supportive team.

We are an integrated health and social care MDT, working with adults over the age of 18 who have experienced a recent change in their function secondary to physical and/or cognitive changes. We provide up to 6 weeks of tailored rehabilitation that optimises their engagement and independence of their ADL’s.

Our service aims to:

• Facilitate the safe discharge of people from healthcare in hospital to healthcare at home.
• Provide intensive, short term multi-disciplinary rehabilitation & care support to promote functional independence.

Our Professional Offer to You:

• Develop your clinical skills in holistic assessment, problem solving, intervention planning and joint working with other health and social care colleagues.
• Develop management and operational skills.
• Access appropriate GSTT leadership development training courses to support career development.
• Support you to be involved in Physio meetings and In-service training.
• Provide supervision and clinical support.

At GSTT we are committed to providing:

• Professional expert advice, including access to our Professional Leads in our Community and Hospital settings.
• An annual appraisal and PDR.
• Structured in-service development programs and supervisions.
• Support to undertake research, audit and service evaluation.
• Training links to London Southbank and King’s College Universities.

Main duties of the job

Have responsibility for specialist rehabilitation and therapy assessment, specialist intervention, care planning and review of individual clients. Delegate tasks to RSWs.

Case manage people through intensive short term rehabilitation programmes. Goal setting with clients to maximise independence, facilitate early hospital discharge, reduce reliance on care and reduce admissions to long term domiciliary care.

Work, as a lone practitioner and at times with colleagues, across a variety of locations within the community to meet the needs of a multi-cultural population in an inner city area.

Work as an autonomous practitioner complying with the standards set by the regulatory body (HCPC), professional body (CSP), government, Trust and department, thereby being professionally and legally responsible and accountable for all aspects of own work and to meet the requirements for professional registration. Work as part of a flexible multidisciplinary team, across traditional professional boundaries to meet the needs of clients using a holistic and client centred approach

To be responsible for practice, education, assessment, mentorship and preceptorship of students and new/junior members of staff. To work towards organisational priorities and achieving service aims. Support the department’s commitment to meeting patient needs and delivering excellence it is essential the post holder be able to work their hours and contribute to both rotas over a 7 day week, including weekday and weekend.

Detailed job description and main responsibilities

Professional / Clinical responsibilities

• To be professionally and legally responsible for own practice and accountable for all aspects of treatment delivered to the client to ensure a high standard of clinical care.
• To work as an autonomous lone practitioner, case managing clients in the community and co-ordinating their care.
• To carry out timely assessment, treatment, goal setting and rehabilitation of community clients to prevent admission or re-admission to hospital or long term domiciliary care and to facilitate early discharge home from hospital.
• To be competent in using a wide variety of specialised assessment and treatment approaches with adults with a range of conditions, including those with severe physical and cognitive impairment or multiple diagnoses in order to formulate treatment plans, maximise rehabilitation potential and set goals.
• Using advanced clinical reasoning skills, analyse and interpret complex assessment findings, from both standardised and non-standardised assessments in order to formulate an accurate diagnosis and prognosis.
• To be able to analyse and interpret complex clinical and social information from a range of sources.
• To ascertain rehabilitation potential of clients following assessment and devise both uni-disciplinary and multi-disciplinary rehabilitation goals which address clinical rehabilitation needs, client choice, service criteria, urgency of need and clinical risk.
• To be able to identify significant health changes that would warrant medical intervention and liaise with the relevant practitioner in a timely manner.
• To educate clients, carers and family members on the client’s medical condition, prognosis and physical management encouraging their involvement and actively promoting healthy lifestyles.
• To implement a range of interventions including, but not limited to, physical and cognitive rehabilitation in functional tasks, work and leisure.
• To undertake patient moving and handling assessments, make recommendations and provide training to informal carers when required.
• To provide recommendations for posture and seating, minor home adaptations, and specialist housing.
• Assess clients’ needs for any rehabilitative equipment and aids to improve safety and functioning within the home as part of a Trusted Assessor role.
• To train RSW’s, therapy assistants, students, informal carers, family members in the use of appropriate equipment.
• Demonstrate the safe use of equipment to external providers of care where appropriate.
• Assess and manage clinical, physical and/or environmental risk.
• To adhere to incident reporting procedures and to support RSWs to do likewise.
• To act as lead health professional for clients when required. This may include initiating and co-ordinating multi-disciplinary/multi-agency meetings, liaising with clients/families and onward referrals to other professionals/agencies.
• To identify significant health changes that would warrant medical intervention and liaise with the relevant practitioner.
• To liaise with the multidisciplinary team and identify when referral on to other professions within the team or outside agencies is indicated. This may include making recommendations on package of care needs when appropriate.
• To maintain accurate and up to date individual client records and ensure safekeeping and confidentiality of these records (including use of the Trust electronic patient records system) in line with Trust, legal and professional requirements.
• To evaluate client intervention and progress in a timely manner using appropriate outcome measures and evaluation tools. To adapt care plans accordingly and delegate tasks appropriately to RSWs.To discharge clients in a timely manner having reviewed the client’s needs and goals, making appropriate onward referrals where necessary.
• To participate in the duty therapy rota for the single point of access, responsible for triage and prioritisation of new referrals.
• To respect an individual’s ethnicity and cultural and religious beliefs.

Please see job description document for full responsibilities.

Applicant requirements

You must have appropriate UK professional registration.

This post is subject to the Rehabilitation of Offenders Act 1974 (Exceptions) Order 1975 (Amendment) (England and Wales) Order 2020 and it will be necessary for a submission for Disclosure to be made to the Disclosure and Barring Service.