The Advanced Nurse Practitioner-EB research is an experienced registered nurse with extensive research experience and specialist skills to assess and treat patients and manage the clinical environment, in liaison with the management and consultant team. The nurse will act as an autonomous practitioner in forming clinical decisions and complex management plans in the diagnosis, assessment and treatment of patients. In conjunction with senior nursing and consultant staff formulate the development of clinical guidance for all aspects of clinical practice within the clinical speciality relevant to EB research. The post holder will develop new areas of EB research practice, with nursing and consultant staff ensuring quality standards are met. The post holder will work closely with the interdisciplinary team and collaborate with colleagues to ensure that high quality patient care is maintained within EB research studies.
The Advanced Nurse Practitioner-EB research will be responsible for delivering PEBLES, in liaison with the study Chief Investigator, and for managing the research team members. This will include:
1. Project management and leadership of the PEBLES team, requiring strong decision-making skills and including management of band 7 research nurse and other PEBLES team members;
2. Responsibility for PEBLES finances and shared accountability for the current grant in excess of £780,000;
3. Providing research expertise and leadership, including managing large datasets and working with PEBLES/EB database developers and with researchers at all three PEBLES sites; the postholder will also participate in collection of PEBLES data including, as lone worker, home visits around the UK;
4. Disseminating PEBLES findings, including collaboration with the statisticians (based in Austria) and regular writing for publication; this postholder will share responsibility for maximising PEBLES outputs.
About the Trust
Guy’s and St Thomas’ NHS Foundation Trust comprises five of the UK’s best known hospitals – Guy’s, St Thomas’, Evelina London Children’s Hospital, Royal Brompton and Harefield – as well as community services in Lambeth and Southwark, all with a long history of high quality care, clinical excellence, research and innovation.
We are among the UK’s busiest, most successful foundation trusts. We provide specialist care for patients including heart and lung, cancer and renal services as well as a full range of local hospital and community services for people in Lambeth and Southwark.
We have a long tradition of clinical and scientific achievement and – as part of King’s Health Partners – we are one of England’s eight academic health sciences centres, bringing together world-class clinical services, teaching and research. We have one of the National Institute for Health Research’s biomedical research centres, established with King’s College London in 2007, as well as dedicated clinical research facilities.
We have around 22,700 staff, making us one of the largest NHS Trusts in the country and one of the biggest employers locally. We aim to reflect the diversity of the communities we serve and continue to develop new and existing partnerships with local people, patients, neighbouring NHS organisations, local authorities and charitable bodies and GPs.
1.1 Management and Clinical Leadership
- Work autonomously across professional, organisational and system boundaries and proactively develop and sustain new partnerships and networks to influence and improve health, outcomes and healthcare delivery systems;
- To screen, recruit and review EB research participants according to the study protocol, delivering study interventions where appropriate, and undertaking reviews in the participant’s home where requested (as lone worker)
- To receive patients with undifferentiated and undiagnosed problems and make an assessment of their health care needs, based on highly-developed nursing knowledge and skills.
- To be responsible for ordering necessary investigations and provide treatment and care both individually, as part of a team, and through referral to other agencies.
- To make differential diagnoses using decision-making and problem-solving skills and have the authority to admit or discharge patients from their caseload, and refer patients to other health care providers as appropriate.
- To provide a consultancy and clinical leadership function as required.
- To undertake a wide range of advanced clinical interventions, which may include Advanced Life Support Skills and Independent Nurse Prescribing.
- Support and enable patients and carers to make informed decisions relating to their participation in EB research.
- Review and update the documentation to improve the quality, accuracy and consistency of information recorded ensuring that the Trust is CNST compliant.
- Negotiate and facilitate the management of change in practices to achieve best practice in services.
- To develop and implement with nursing and consultant staff new policies and clinical guidance for new procedures/ EB research.
- To support and facilitate the development of clinical skills for the nurses
- Line manages members of the EB research nursing and support team as appropriate including clinical nurse specialists
- Lead the EB research nursing team in establishing and maintaining effective communication channels with multi-disciplinary team, patients and their carers and external agencies.
- Coordinate, lead and manage the activities of EB research, particularly PEBLES, on a day to day basis.
- Establish regular dialogue with local and tertiary referral centres sharing good practice.
- Participate in professional nursing initiatives as an invited member to the Directorate and trust nursing groups e.g. TNMC.
- To lead relevant departmental nursing meetings
- Investigation of complaints relating to patient/participant care, leading the development of action plans to address areas of concern, identifying learning and changes to practice.
- Managing human resources issues, undertaking PDR ’ s.
- To use excellent prioritising and time management skills to meet the unpredictable and conflicting needs of the service.
- To develop own managerial and administrative functions in conjunction with role developments.
4.2 Service Development
- Work in close partnership with the appropriate Clinical Leads and Service Managers to ensure all local, corporate and national initiatives and targets in relation to speciality are met.
- Involved in leading the implementation of nursing developments/ initiatives introduced from the national Network or bodies.
- To utilise information systems to aid regular audit of the clinical role and to provide an activity analysis and specialist report on a quarterly basis.
- To provide expert input to the Trust’s quality strategy by expressing the needs of the patient via a whole systems approach rather than a uni-professional view.
- To have experience of facilitating change by collaborating with stakeholders within specialist area, across other professions and both intra and inter organisationally to produce innovative practice and service development showing improved patient outcomes.
- Perform and report on quality assurance measurements of the new initiatives relating to service within the Trust and relevant agencies.
- Identify and take forward the specific contribution nurse Practitioners within service can make to the future development of the service.
4.3 Financial responsibilities
- Accountable for all aspects of the allocated budget.
- Ensure best practice and good value for money when ordering supplies and maintaining stocks and adhere to the Trusts code of practice for financial management
- To have regular meetings regarding the budget with the service delivery manager.
4.4 Information management
- Responsible for the systematic monitoring of EB research data, in collaboration with the administration and managerial staff.
- Provide an annual report of the statistics, Key performance indicators, service and practice developments.
- Provide a high standard of documentation according the trusts documentation policy and the NMC guidance on standards for good record keeping and information governance standards.
4.5 Education & Developing others
- Enable patients/clients to learn by designing and coordinating the implementation of plans appropriate to their preferred approach to learning, motivation and developmental stage.
- Develop robust governance systems by contributing to the development and implementation of evidence-based protocols, documentation processes, standards, policies and clinical guidelines through interpreting and synthesising information from a variety of sources and promoting their use in practice
- Work in collaboration with others to plan and deliver interventions to meet the learning and development needs of their own and other professions;
- Advocate and contribute to the development of an organisational culture that supports continuous learning and development, evidence-based practice and succession planning;
- Embrace the current awareness of local regional, national and international perspectives in clinical speciality.
- Provide training and education opportunities with the team, within the trust, local and national areas.
4.6 Research and Development
- To participate in and lead on projects and research that will enhance personal performance and the operation of the service. To contribute towards meeting the objectives of the Nursing & Midwifery Strategy.
- Work within relevant regulations and ICH GCP (International Conference on Harmonisation and Good Clinical Practice) ensuring that the clinical research protocol is adhered to at all times.
- Devise, implement and evaluate strategies to identify eligible participants for research studies and support less experienced team members to implement those strategies.
- Support the clinical research nurse to develop and set up new commercial and non-commercial trials/studies, liaising with R&D department, funder and relevant industry partners
- Work with the senior EB research leaders to provide research expertise for EB research, ensure trials/studies are run safely and effectively, and further develop and consolidate national and international research collaborations.
- To oversee management of the PEBLES REDCap database, collaborate with the database developers and prepare datasets and topic-specific instructions for statistical analysis.
- To participate in, and take local responsibility for, the development of a global EB registry in collaboration with the funder and other national and international EB researchers
- Contribute to building EB research infrastructure at GSTT, overseeing the postholders recruited for that project.
- To collaborate with EB research statisticians to disseminate study findings, including regular writing for publication whether as first or co-author.
4.7 Professional Accountability:
- To comply with all Trust policies and procedures
- To act in accordance with the NMC code of conduct and other Trust, professional and statutory guidance, policies and rules.
- To make professionally autonomous decisions, for which they are accountable.
- Responsible for own professional development and clinical/managerial update.
- To undertake any other duties commensurate with the grade as directed by the Head of Nursing/ Consultant Nurse/Matron.
