Care NavigatorNHS

Job summary

Care Navigators are the first point of contact for patients and act as a focal point of communication between patients, doctors and other medical staff.

Our care navigators are the first point of contact and they are crucial to the effective running of the surgery. It is important that the right applicant is able to communicate effectively at all levels and remains calm under pressure. Excellent organisational and IT skills are required.

Care navigators review patients needs and help them access the services and support they require to understand and manage their own health and wellbeing, referring to social prescribing link workers, health and wellbeing coaches, and other professionals where appropriate.

The role of the skilled care navigator is varied and involves excellent communication through a variety of means including telephone and online. The successful applicant will need to be able to efficiently switch between systems in order to efficiently navigate the patient to the correct service for their needs. It is extremely important that the care navigator is committed to providing excellent customer service.

The successful candidate will be based at one of the practices within the Southend Coastal Surgeries Group of practices. They will be caring, dedicated, reliable and person-focussed and enjoy working with a wide range of people.

Main duties of the job

• Ensure that patients without appointments but who need 'urgent consultations are booked into appropriate slots and referred to a GP where necessary
• Help people to manage their needs through answering queries, making and managing appointments, and ensuring that people have good quality written or verbal information to help them make choices about their care.
• Signpost patients appropriately to self-help resources as required, proving them with written and digital sources where necessary.
• Printing and issuing pathology forms and specimen pots as required. Advising patients if there are specific requirement they need to follow when collecting the sample. Collecting in the sample and ensuring this is placed in the pathology collection box.
• Ensuring Tasks within the clinical system are actioned in a timely manner.
• Raising Tasks within the clinical system where appropriate.
• Administration of patient letters via the Anima Document Management system or Document Management System in SystmOne
• Work with PCN and other community services as required, in an appropriate and polite manner to facilitate patient.
• Answering patient phone calls ensuring patients queries are process in accordance the practice requirements, signposting patients as appropriate

Job description

• Work with people, their families and carers to improve their understanding of the patients condition and support them to develop and review personalised care and support plans to manage their needs and achieve better healthcare outcomes.
• Help people to manage their needs through answering queries, making and managing appointments, and ensuring that people have good quality written or verbal information to help them make choices about their care.
• Signpost patients appropriately to self-help resources as required, proving them with written and digital sources where necessary.
• Printing and issuing pathology forms and specimen pots as required. Advising patients if there are specific requirement they need to follow when collecting the sample. Collecting in the sample and ensuring this is placed in the pathology collection box.
• Ensuring patient phone calls are managed in a timely manner, politely, supporting patient needs.
• Ensuring Tasks within the clinical system are actioned in a timely manner.
• Raising Tasks within the clinical system where appropriate.
• Administration of patient letters via the Anima Document Management system or Document Management System in SystmOne.
• Support practices to keep care records up to date by identifying and updating missing or out-of-date information about the persons circumstances.
• Work with PCN and other community services as required, in an appropriate and polite manner to facilitate patient.
• Updating patient records accurately and in a timely manner
• Answering patient phone calls ensuring patients queries are process in accordance the practice requirements, signposting patients as appropriate
• Ensuring all visitors are signed in and out of the building.
• Ensure that patients without appointments but who need 'urgent consultations are booked into appropriate slots and referred to a GP where necessary

Key Tasks

Projecting the practice values as the first point of contact at the practice

a. Unlocking and locking up of the premises securely.

b. Answering phone calls from patients and dealing with queries appropriately

c. Providing advice and support to patient face-to-face

d. Booking patients into the clinical system when they arrive for their appointment.

e. Ensuring clinical documentation is scanned on to the patient records in line with the practices processes

f. Develop an in-depth knowledge of the local health and care infrastructure and know how and when to enable people to access support and services that are right for them.

g. Support the coordination of patient care by working with colleagues or clinicians within the practice.

h. Chaperone patients as required.

i. FP10 management as per the practice policy when opening and closing the practice.

j. Identifying and escalating safeguarding concerns to the Safeguarding Lead within the practice.

Coordinate and integrate care

a. Regularly liaise with the range of multidisciplinary professionals and colleagues involved in the persons care, facilitating a coordinated approach and ensuring everyone is kept up to date so that any issues or concerns can be appropriately addressed and supported.

b. Support patients by way of raising requests for an appointment in our digital triage system Anima if they do not have the means to raise the request themselves. Monitoring the request if the patient down not have sufficient IT access and liaising with the patient accordingly.

c. Support patients by way of raising administration request (Med 3, requests for letter etc) in our digital triage system Anima if they do not have the means to raise the request themselves.

d. Identify when action or additional support is needed, alerting a named clinical contact in addition to relevant professionals, and highlighting any safety concerns.

e. Keep accurate and up-to-date records of contacts, appropriately using GP and other records systems relevant to the role, adhering to information governance and data protection legislation.

f. Work sensitively with people, their families and carers to capture key information, facilitating the patient journey with a focus on maintaining n their health and wellbeing.

g. Record and collate information according to agreed protocols and contribute to evaluation reports required for the monitoring and quality improvement of the service.

3. Professional development

a. Work with a named clinical point of contact for advice and support.

b. Undertake continual personal and professional development, taking an active part in reviewing and developing the role and responsibilities, and provide evidence of learning activity as required.

c. Adhere to organisational policies and procedures, including confidentiality, safeguarding, lone working, information governance, equality, diversity and inclusion training and health and safety.

Miscellaneous

a. Establish strong working relationships with GPs and practice teams and work collaboratively with other care coordinators, social prescribing link workers and health and wellbeing coaches, supporting each other, respecting each others views and meeting regularly as a team.

b. Act as a champion for personalised care and shared decision making within the practice.

c. Demonstrate a flexible attitude and be prepared to carry out other duties as may be reasonably required from time to time within the general character of the post or the level of responsibility of the role, ensuring that work is delivered in a timely and effective manner.

d. Identify opportunities and gaps in the service and provide feedback to continually improve the service and contribute to business planning.

e. Contribute to the development of policies and plans relating to equality, diversity and reduction of health inequalities.

f. Work in accordance with the practices policies and procedures.

g. Contribute to the wider aims and objectives of the practice and our PCN to improve and support primary care.

About us

We provide General Medical Services (GMS) to our patients from 2 sites in Southend:

• Thorpe Bay surgery, Tyrone Road Southend-on-Sea SS1 3HDTel 01702 582670
• North Shoebury Surgery, Frobisher Way, Shoeburyness, Essex SS3 8UT

Working together in partnership to deliver services to their patient population across both practice sites, the practice is clinically lead by a GP and an Advance Clinical Practitioner, the partners are supported by a diverse clinical team made up of a diverse team of clinical profressionals.

The administration team comprise of Care Navigators, Care Co-Ordinators, Medical secretaries, administration staff, Assistant Manager, Practice Manager, Primary care Development Manager and Business Manager with a list size combined of 15,635 patients.

We are a Training Practice supporting GP and Nurse Training.

We also provide services for our more vulnerable members of the community via our home visiting service Supporting our housebound patients providing regular blood tests along with other assessments. Our aim is to deliver care and treatment in line with the current legislations and standards evidence based, with clear pathways and tools. Whilst our practice registration is growing, we strive to provide high quality, safe, efficient, and effective service within the resource allocated to the practice. With particular focus on the prevention of disease by promoting health and wellbeing, offering care and advice to our patients.