Clinical Advisor to the Integrated Community Equipment Service (ICES) will be one of a team of two experienced clinical professionals with a background in either nursing, occupational therapy or physiotherapy, providing professional support, advice and training on the prescription, use and selection of equipment for people in the community to the 1,500 clinicians who access the service and to the ICES Management Board.
The post is part of a small team headed by the ICES Pooled Fund Manager. The clinical advising team is embedded with the service provider, Millbrook Healthcare, at their depot in Woking from where they operate the equipment loan service for ICES including their main equipment storage warehouse, their cleaning and decontamination unit and their customer services team.
The clinical adviser will necessarily be required to work closely with the Millbrook team. ICES is a Surrey-wide equipment loan service jointly commissioned and funded by Surrey County Council and NHS Surrey. It issues around 60,000 items of equipment per year and over 25,000 people receive a service. The current annual budget is £4m.
This is a key role in ensuring that the service delivers effectively, economically and to the highest standards; the service makes a significant contribution to the wider health and social care agenda of ensuring that people are able to return to and/or remain in their own homes and live as independently as possible. The two members of the clinical advising team will be expected to work closely with each other to plan, develop and deliver a programme of training and ongoing support and advice to clinical prescribers; they will also be key players in the process of equipment review and will advise and investigate any incidents relating to risk and/or safety of equipment.
They will also support the ICES Board by contributing to services development plans. As well as professional clinical experience and an ability to learn, absorb and disseminate information from across clinical disciplines, the role calls for excellent communication skills, an ability to make balanced decisions under pressure based on an understanding of the service objectives as a whole and a positive approach to service development and innovation.
The service has a high strategic profile and as such it is important that it performs and delivers and evolves effectively. This is a challenging role that operates in a dynamic environment; it has the scope to significantly contribute to more effective clinical provision and an improved quality of service for the people that it serves and as such has the potential to be rewarding on multiple levels.
Closing Date: 24 October 2011
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