Patient Support Worker - Grade V

The Patient Support Worker will be a central point of contact for cancer patients whilst working alongside the clinical nurse specialist team to improve patient care and communication.

The Patient Support Worker will be patient facing pivotal in ensuring both personalised stratified follow up and supported self-management services are in place for the care of cancer patients, in conjunction with consultants, clinical nurse specialists and all other staff involved in the cancer care pathway.

The role will involve:

• Acting as a single point of contact of access to patients who are on the supported self-managed follow-up pathway,
• Supporting and coordinating remote surveillance for patients on the supported self-managed follow-up pathway, and
• Supporting and coordinating the overall needs of patients on the supported self-managed follow-up pathway.
• Act as central point of contact for patients triaging calls to the CNS team and escalating clinically urgent calls

The post holder will coordinate all aspects of the patient’s aftercare including: surveillance investigations, organising health and wellbeing events, holistic needs assessments, providing personalised care and support planning, signposting patients to support services and resources, triaging patient phone calls, dealing with patients queries and following up on actions needed, implementing policies and procedures, and managing data. The post holder will provide guidance and information to ultimately improve patient experience

The scope of the role will vary from setting to setting, depending on the local priorities as determined during setup. There are a number of core elements and additional elements may be added according to local need and setting.

The role will involve both patient engagement and administrative responsibilities.

Patient Engagement

• Triage incoming calls and initiate an appropriate response in accordance with the relevant tools, protocols and pathways while liaising with the clinical team for guidance as needed.

• Provide basic telephone advice and refer on to other sources of support.
• Coordinate the diagnostic pathways to ensure patients are scheduled for their appointments appropriately in conjunction with the clinical team.
• Demonstrate the ability to recognise and respond appropriately when faced with a sudden deterioration in a patient’s condition or an emergency situation, alerting the team and enabling rapid response, as appropriate,
• Support the dissemination of patient information regarding appointments, and the appropriate care pathways as guided by the clinical team.
• Make pre-planned, outbound, telephone calls to monitor patient progress along the cancer care pathway.
• Contribute to the holistic needs assessment and the development of an individual care plan.
• Address the needs of service users, and help them navigate the health and social care systems. This will include providing general information and support about cancer, and the services available to them.
• Follow up on conversations with service users and complete the relevant actions required.
• Act as a “patient facilitator” in order to resolve issues that may be perceived as barriers to care.
• Contribute to the work of the multi-disciplinary team (MDT), to help maintain an efficient system and streamline the patient pathway.
• Coordinate the handover with other teams to facilitate safe and effective transition of care between services.
• Advise patients and carers on how to make contact when they feel that their condition or needs have changed, including what to do out of hours.
• Communicate effectively with relevant MDT and clinical teams to ensure that all new stratified follow-up patients are identified for coordinated support as assessed by the appropriate healthcare professional.

Administration

• Ensure the efficient day-to-day administration of area of responsibility
• Ensure that patient records are continually kept up to date documenting patient interactions and any information provided - these tasks should be undertaken under the guidance of the clinical team.
• Ensure that archives and records are accurate, and readily available to the appropriate authority, whilst also maintaining confidentially.
• Provide administrative support for meetings and attend as and when required.
• Ensure deadlines are met and that service levels are maintained.
• Ensure policies and procedures are well documented, understood and adhered to.
• Ensure accurate attention to detail in own work and work of the team.
• Support the planning and delivery of self-management workshops/events, in collaboration with the relevant clinical teams.
• Map the provision and availability of self-management programmes in order to be able to signpost patients and carers to appropriate events and resources, to enable self-management.

Human Resources / Supervision of Staff

• Create and maintain a positive working environment among staff members, which contributes to effective working relationships.
• Promote co-operation and working in harmony with other teams and disciplines.
• Trouble-shoot problems and ensure decisions are made in collaboration with the MDT and are in line with local and national agreements.
• Pursue and promote continuous professional development, in order to develop management expertise and professional knowledge.

Support for service users

• Promote and maintain a patient focused environment.
• Effectively monitor service provision, communicating efficiencies gained, and notifying line managers of any deficiencies observed.
• Ensure service users are treated with dignity and respect and are listened to at all times.
• Actively seek feedback from service users via “patient satisfaction surveys” and implement the relevant changes, in agreement with line manager(s) approval.

Service delivery and improvement

• Embrace change and adapt local work practices accordingly, to ensure all team members understand how to implement the changes required.
• Encourage and support team members through change processes.
• Monitor the efficiency of the service provided by the team.
• Where inefficiencies arise within the administration of the service, identify and implement change, in agreement with the clinical team.

Standards, policies, procedures & legislation

• Maintain own knowledge, and contribute to the development of relevant HSE policies, procedures, guidelines and practices to perform the role effectively and to ensure current working standards are met across the team.
• Maintain a good understanding of internal and external factors that can affect service delivery, including an awareness of local and national issues that can directly impact their area.
• Maintain own knowledge of relevant regulations and legislation e.g. Financial Regulations, Health & Safety Legislation, Employment Legislation, FOI Acts etc.

• Have a working knowledge of the Health Information and Quality Authority (HIQA) Standards and other standards as they apply to the role for example, Standards for Healthcare, National Standards for the Prevention and Control of Healthcare Associated Infections, Hygiene Standards and Child Protection and safeguarding policies etc.
• Effectively implement the aforementioned standards, in compliance with HSE protocols.
• Support and promote energy, water and waste initiatives to create a more sustainable, low carbon and efficient health service.

The above Job Description is not intended to be a comprehensive list of all duties involved and consequently, the post holder may be required to perform other duties and provide cross cover as appropriate to the post which may be assigned to him/her from time to time and to contribute to the development of the post while in office.

• Familiar with Beaumont Hospital Systems.
• Excellent IT skills and in particular excellent knowledge of excel.
• Previous experience in a healthcare administration role with excellent communication and organisational skills.
• Previous experience dealing directly with patients.