The pharmacy department is seeking to recruit a lead nurse to the Outpatient Parenteral Antimicrobial Therapy (OPAT) team. This is an exciting opportunity to join this well-established, successful team supporting the delivery of specialised nursing care to patients who require outpatient or domiciliary intravenous antimicrobial therapy.

You will work collaboratively with the multi-disciplinary team in providing expert advice to ensure safe and effective administration and supply of intravenous antimicrobials to facilitate positive patient outcomes.

You will assess, evaluate and actively support patients from referral to discharge from the service to reduce length of hospital stay, avoid admission and improve patient flow.

You must be energetic, motivated, assertive and possess demonstrable leadership and management experience with highly developed communication and interpersonal abilities. Can work autonomously and confident to work under your own initiative but also work well within a small but dynamic team.

Main duties of the job

Provide strong clinical and operational leadership for the OPAT service to ensure the delivery of high standards of clinical practice and professional conduct in keeping with best practice evidence, CQC standards and organisational policy and procedures.

Be responsible for appropriate assessment of patients requiring OPAT following appropriate governance processes.

Ensure effective working relationships are achieved with all professional groups/partners involved in the OPAT patient pathway of care to achieve safe, personal and effective care for patients.

To facilitate admission avoidance and early supported discharge thus reducing the length of stay in hospital for patients receiving IV antimicrobial therapy with the support of microbiology.

Develop and maintain key performance indicators (KPI) for OPAT alongside the Lead Antimicrobial Pharmacist.

Be able to cannulate and trouble shoot any problems arising from peripheral or central venous access devices.

Monitor and evaluate clinical practice, initiate quality improvement programmes i.e. C-OPAT (complex oral therapy), IV to Oral Switch (IVOST) service, measuring outcomes, and audit service to support quality improvement and assurance.

Develop and continuously optimise the OPAT policy, standard operating procedures, and clinical governance arrangements.

Act as a role model for delivering the desired standards of clinical/nursing care and interventions.

About us

Established in 2003 East Lancashire Hospitals NHS Trust (ELHT) is a large integrated health care organisation providing high quality acute secondary healthcare for the people of East Lancashire and Blackburn with Darwen. Our vision is to be recognised for providing safe, personal and effective care. We currently provide high quality services and treat over 700,000 patients a year from the most serious of emergencies to planned operations and procedures. We employ over 8,000 staff, many of whom are internationally renowned and have won awards for their work and achievements.

We are a large and forward-thinking department, always looking to develop new pathways to improve patient outcomes and experiences to ensure patients are discharged home safely.

In June 2023 a new Trust wide electronic patient record and electronic prescribing and administration of medicines system was implemented, enabling the OPAT team to improve clinical screening and prescribing of appropriate antibiotics through the use of an electronic care plan. Over 120 patients are safely discharged on to the OPAT Service each year from the Medical, Surgical and Ambulatory care wards across the Trust.

You may be interested to know that East Lancashire Hospitals provides onsite parking and is well connected to the motorway network, making it an easy commuting distance from Manchester and Liverpool, with many of our team hailing from these locations. The Lake District is a short drive away for leisure activities.

Job description

Job responsibilities

See attached documents for full detailed job description.

You will need to be a motivated individual with excellent communication skills and the ability to work under pressure, maintaining a pivotal link between inpatient and domiciliary teams in order to provide excellent personal, safe and effective patient care

Additional contact information:

If you would like any further information, or would like to arrange a visit, please contact:

• Michelle Randall (Assistant Director of Pharmacy)

Michelle.randall@elht.nhs.uk 01254 734167

• Kerri Robinson (Lead Pharmacist- Antimicrobial Therapy) kerri.robinson @elht.nhs.uk 01254 734505

Person Specification

Qualifications

Essential

• Registered Nurse
• Current professional registration with Nursing and midwifery
• Degree in nursing/health related subject or be working towards or equivalent
• Computer literacy

Desirable

• Qualified Independent supplementary prescriber
• Teaching Qualification
• Leadership qualification

Experience

Essential

• Post registration experience in at least 2 clinical specialities
• Experience in clinical nurse specialist role
• A working understanding of antimicrobial stewardship
• Experience of MDT working
• Experience of managing change
• Experience of developing and implementing policy and SOP
• Experience of supervisory management of team and delivery of training

Desirable

• Experience at Senior sister/charge nurse
• Independant supplementary prescibing

Knowledge

Essential

• Proficient in admin of IV medicines and cannulation
• Good understanding of antimicrobials and antimicrobial stewardship
• Good understanding of OPAT service
• Excellent understanding of prevention of infection
• Ability to work in different clinical environments
• Computer literate
• Undersatnding of research and clinical trials

personal attributes

Essential

• Ability to organise time
• Ability to work alone or be supportive team member
• Confident and articulate
• Able to work flexibly

Employer details

Employer name

East Lancashire Hospitals NHS Trust

Address

Royal Blackburn Hospital

Haslingden Road

Blackburn

BB2 3HH

Any attachments will be accessible after you click to apply.

435-D279-24