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Detailed job description and main responsibilities

KEY TASKS & RESPONSIBILITIES:

• To be professionally and legally responsible and accountable for all aspects of your own work, including the management of patients in your care.
• To undertake the comprehensive assessment of patients, including those with diverse presentation/multi pathologies, using clinical reasoning skills and manual assessment techniques to provide an accurate diagnosis of their condition.
• To formulate and deliver an individual physiotherapy treatment programme based on sound knowledge of evidence based practice and treatment options using clinical assessment, reasoning skills and knowledge of treatment skills including manual physiotherapy techniques, patient education, exercise classes, electrotherapy techniques and other alternative options.
• To formulate soundly reasoned prognoses and recommend best course of intervention, developing negotiated goals leading to comprehensive discharge plans.
• To take delegated responsibility from the Senior physiotherapist for managing patients with particular conditions and be responsible for providing physiotherapy assessment and treatment plans for patients with these conditions within each rotation.
• To provide spontaneous and planned advice, teaching and instruction to patients, relatives, carers and other professionals, to promote understanding of the aims of physiotherapy and to ensure a consistent approach to patient care.
• To assess patient understanding of treatment proposals, gain informed consent and have the capacity to work within a legal framework with patients who lack capacity to consent to
  treatment.
• To evaluate patient progress, reassess and alter treatment programmes.
• To assess and manage clinical risk within own patient caseload.
• To be responsible for maintaining accurate and comprehensive patient treatment records in line with professional and Trust standards of practice.
• To represent physiotherapy service and/or individual patients at the multidisciplinary team meetings.
• To be involved in the teaching, planning and clinical supervision of physiotherapy technical instructors and physiotherapy assistants.
• When working on the emergency on-call duty rota (approximately 1 evening in every 4 weeks) undertake the assessment and treatment of acutely ill patients with respiratory problems, who may have a complex presentation and maintain associated records as an
  autonomous practitioner. Provide advice to the multi-disciplinary team regarding patients respiratory and chest function/condition. This service is provided out of hours and may mean call outs during the night.
• To work as part of the physiotherapy team providing weekend service as required in each of the clinical areas. This is approximately 1 Sat or Sun in 4 weeks.
• To use a range of verbal and non-verbal communication tools to communicate effectively with patients to progress rehabilitation and treatment programmes, and to ensure an understanding of their condition/problem so that patients are supported in self management of their condition. The communication skills of persuasion, motivation, explanation and gaining informed consent will be used with a wide variety of patients.
• To use communication skills to address language /cultural diversity issues.
• To communicate patient related information effectively, to ensure collaborative working with the Multi-Disciplinary Team (MDT) members.
• To assess patient understanding of treatment proposals, gain informed consent and have the capacity to work within a legal framework with patients who lack capacity to consent to
  treatment.
• To maintain accurate and up-to-date documentation in line with legal and departmental requirements and communicate assessment and treatment results to the appropriate disciplines in the form of reports and letters.
• To participate in the appraisal process as an appraisee.
• To ensure that your own practice and that of staff under your supervision meet the required professional standards of physiotherapy practice.
• To be responsible for organising and planning own caseload to meet service and patient priorities, readjusting plans as situations change/arise.
• To be responsible for the supervision and co-ordination of physiotherapy technical instructors and assistants on a daily basis.
• To comply with the organisational and departmental policies and procedures and to be involved in the reviewing and updating as appropriate.
• To be responsible for the safe and competent use of gym, hydrotherapy and electrotherapy equipment by patients.
• To maintain own clinical professional development (CPD) by keeping abreast of any new research and developments and incorporating them as necessary into your clinical practice.
• To maintain and develop current knowledge of evidence-based practice in the areas in each rotation, developing specialist knowledge of particular conditions and patient types.
• To take a role in the in-service training programme by attendance at, participating in and delivering in-service training, mentoring, individual training sessions, external courses, reflective practice and peer review.
• Undertake the measurement and evaluation of your work and current practices through the use of evidence based projects, audit, research and outcome measures, with more senior physiotherapists.
• To undertake as directed the collection of data for use in service audit and research projects.