Health Care Assistant Job Summary
We have an exciting opportunity to join our team as a Cancer Health Care Assistant / Support Worker position based at The Royal Sussex County Hospital, with occasional travel to other UHSussex sites.
This Health Care Assistant role supports our clinical nurse specialist team to care for patients diagnosed with cancer. They will join an existing team of Band 4 support workers within cancer services.
It will be important that the individual is motivated and enthusiastic about providing outstanding care to patients across their whole pathway. Is able to work autonomously and as part of the multi-disciplinary team.
Health Care Assistant Main Duties
The Cancer Health Care Assistant / Support Worker (CSW) will support the site specific Clinical Nurse Specialist in filling their complex role under the line management of the the Cancer Support Worker Team Leader. A large part of the role involves assisting the Clinical Nurse Specialist and Cancer Support Worker Team Leader in key elements of the Personalised Care programme.
- Holistic Needs Assessment
- Care Plan development
- End of treatment Summaries
- Health and Well-being events and resources.
They will develop a network of contacts across all care settings within Health and Social Care to enable them to help patients resolve any non-clinical issues they may be facing.
This may often require onward referral to other professionals and discussion with the clinical team in relation to clinical issues.
The other main duty of this role is to support the Clinical Nurse Specialists by triaging incoming calls to the CNS Helpline. This will involve advice and guidance, referral onwards and supporting patients needs where appropriate to do so and within clearly set boundaries.
Health Care Assistant Job description
Job responsibilities
- Co-ordinate care by providing a single point of access, including rapid re-entry into the system for those people identified as having urgent or specialist needs.
- Provide general information and support about cancer and cancer services, to enable people to navigate the health and social care system and make choices that are best for their cancer and their life.
- Triage telephone calls for CNS when CNS unavailable
- Provide basic telephone advice and refer on or sign-post to other sources of support
- Guide people through the use of self-assessment resources
- Pro-actively identify patient and carer needs using, approved tools, protocols and procedures to ensure that people get the right support to meet their needs.
- Working with the CNS, coordinate holistic needs assessment and the development of an individual care plan including attending and holding face to face clinics
- Make visits to wards and The Sussex Cancer Centre as required
- Attend outpatient clinics to support patient information needs as directed
- Act as advocate and facilitator to resolve issues that may be perceived as barriers to care
- Support people to access appropriate information and support, by sign-posting to a range of support services and take an approach which helps people to self-manage where appropriate
- Encourage and support active and healthy lifestyle choices
- Coach patients and carers to understand what signs, symptoms or situations to be aware of that would indicate concern, using agreed protocols
- Coach 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
- Make sure that people affected by cancer are aware that they are interacting with a Macmillan professional and know about the full range of resources and services available through Macmillan
- Actively engage with Macmillan Cancer Support to contribute expertise and experience and support the Macmillan Corporate Strategy
- Carry out some administration duties required by the role and that may release time from specialist CNS
To apply for this job please visit apps.trac.jobs.