Job Description

1. JOB DETAILS

Job title: Community Paediatric Physiotherapist, Band 6

Accountable to: Clinical Service Manager

Location: West Cumbria

2. JOB SUMMARY

All staff are expected to work to the Trust Values:

Kindness – Kindness and compassion cost nothing, yet accomplish a

great deal.

Respect - We are respective to everyone and are open, honest and fair
– respect behaviours.

Ambition – We set goals to achieve the best for our patients, teams,
organisations and our partners.

Collaboration – We are stronger and better working together with and

for our patients.

 To be responsible for the provision of physiotherapy assessment, treatment

and management of babies, children and adolescents who present with a
wide variety of conditions in both community and acute settings. These
include acute, chronic, complex, disabling and life limiting conditions.

 To demonstrate knowledge and skills in the management of acute paediatric

respiratory and orthopaedic conditions as well as neurological and
developmental conditions and learning disabilities.

 To participate in educating other healthcare and multi-agency professionals

and physiotherapy students in paediatric physiotherapy in conjunction with
senior colleagues.

 To participate in the management of complex paediatric cases within a multi

disciplinary team setting, under the guidance of a more senior therapist.

 To work in the community as a lone practitioner in line with NHS Cumbria

lone worker policy.
  To provide assessment for and provision of equipment for complex children in
the community

3. ROLE OF DEPARTMENT

To deliver a range of commissioned community based health and wellbeing services

to all children and young people in West Cumbria aged 0-19, working in partnership
with other agencies also involved in the provision of care for this population in order
to achieve and improve agreed outcomes.

4. ORGANISATIONAL CHART

Clinical Service
Manager

Specialist Team Manager

Band 7 Children’s
Physiotherapist

Band 6 Children’s
Physiotherapist

5. KEY WORKING RELATIONSHIPS

Specialist Team Managers

Quality and safety leads
Information team
Communication team
Learning network team
External partner agencies e.g. education county council
Children, young people and their families
Cumbria Children’s Services
Children’s Centres
Third/voluntary sector organisations
6. DUTIES AND RESPONSIBILITIES OF THE POST
CLINICAL

1. To undertake skilled assessment and clinical diagnosis of babies, children

and/or adolescents using a range of specialist standardised assessments
and clinical observation skills.

2. To provide physiotherapy treatment intervention in a variety of

environments including hospital wards, home, school and other premises in
the community.

3. To provide treatment on an individual basis or in a group setting, according

to the assessed needs.

4. To display competent self-management of workload and time management

skills in day to day clinical work, record keeping and other duties.

5. To demonstrate safe therapeutic manual handling skills, including hoisting,

continually assessing the frequently changing levels of risks involved.

6. To provide advice to relevant medical professions as they formulation of a

medical diagnosis. To support the family through this process and to
support them following the receipt of a medical diagnosis.

7. To formulate agreed specialist individual treatment plans and goals based

on clinical reasoning skills.

8. To alter and revise planned interventions as a result of changes in an

individual’s level of function or circumstances, using clinical reasoning
skills.

9. To accept clinical responsibility for the management of a specific paediatric

caseload, to assess and review level of need and to organise this
effectively and efficiently with regard to clinical priorities and time
management with guidance from a more senior therapist.

10. To assess for, trial and prescribe, specialist, non-stock items of equipment
from specialist suppliers in conjunction with Occupational Therapist.

11. To provide planned specialist advice, teaching and instruction to parents,

carers and other relevant professionals in health, social and educational
services, to promote understanding of the aims of physiotherapy and to
ensure a consistent, coordinated approach to optimise patient care.

12. To provide advice for Statutory Assessment of Special Educational Needs.

13. To provide specialist advice to health, social care and educational

 colleagues in the overall management of the child in a range of settings.
This will include the preparation and presentation of reports at relevant
Social Care, Educational and Medical Case Conferences.

14. To work collaboratively with multi-agency professionals to develop

comprehensive support packages for children and their families living with
complex disabling conditions, ensuring appropriate service provision in
response to changing clinical and/or social situations.

COMMUNICATION

1. To facilitate and maintain effective two-way verbal and non-verbal

communication with children and their carers in order to ensure
understanding of the importance and relevance of physiotherapy in gaining
the best outcomes for the child. This will need to take into account the level
of understanding of the child and carers.

2. To gain compliance of children in their treatment when there may be

significant barriers to understanding due to learning disability, behavioural
and emotional problems and/or sensory loss.

3. To communicate sensitive information in understandable form to

parents/carers, which may be unwelcome or difficult to accept, regarding
expectations of mobility or deterioration of abilities with support and
supervision from senior colleagues.

4. To communicate information effectively and work collaboratively with

partner agencies and professionals in health, social care, education and
the voluntary sector to ensure the protection of vulnerable children. This
may include some sensitive information.

5. To use IT to communicate via e-mail and to obtain/input data on

information systems.

PROFESSIONAL

1. To be professionally and legally responsible and accountable for all

aspects of your own work including the case management of children
requiring specialised paediatric physiotherapy intervention. To actively
promote and ensure that all aspects of paediatric physiotherapy offered to
children is of a high clinical standard and evidence based in line with
professional codes of conduct and local policies and procedures.

2. To ensure that clinical governance and risk management guidelines and

policies are followed and to undertake appropriate risk assessments within
the Paediatric Therapy Service, taking follow up action as required.
 3. To participate in NHS Cumbria’s appraisal process and to be committed to
continuing personal and professional development and provide evidence of
such as required.

4. To undertake clinical supervision according to department policy.

5. To comply with the Paediatric Therapy Service policies and procedures and
comment on recommended changes to service provision.

6. To evaluate and measure own practice through the use of outcome

measures and audit, either individually or as part of a team.

7. To work as lone practitioner in a variety of community settings where there

is a requirement to make decisions spontaneously, within the policies and
guidelines of NHS Cumbria.

ORGANISATIONAL

1. To maintain accurate, comprehensive patient treatment records in line with

the Professional Body’s standards of practice and to comply with the Code
of Professional Conduct and to input data on the Community Information
System as required by NHS Cumbria.

2. To assist the manager in achieving the Trust and Paediatric Therapy

Service objectives by attendance at and participation in staff meetings and
team briefings as required.

3. To accept personal responsibility for complying with the Health and Safety
policies of NHS Cumbria including undertaking mandatory training in
manual handling, violence and aggression, fire safety, infection control and
child protection.

FINANCIAL

1. To prescribe specialist equipment with manager’s authorisation.

2. To act as agents and make recommendations against the budgets of other

organisations, e.g. specialist equipment for disabled children to use in
schools

3. To purchase small items from petty cash up to the value of £25 with
manager’s approval.

7. WORK SETTING AND REVIEW

The post holder will report to the Children’s Specialist Team Manager and will
receive management supervision.

They will be required to work autonomously but will receive clinical supervision from
band 7 children’s physiotherapist.

8. INDIVIDUAL RESPONSIBILITIES

The post holder is expected to

 adhere to Trust policies and procedures and relevant legislation including the
requirements of the any professional bodies
 attend mandatory training as identified by the Trust
 adhere to Trust infection prevention policies, procedures, audits in line with the
Health Act 2006, to actively reduce Health Care Associated Infections

9. CONFIDENTIALITY

The post holder must maintain the confidentiality of information about patients’ staff
and Trust business in accordance with the General Data Protection Regulations
(GDPR), Data Protection Act 2018 and Caldicott principles.

10. HEALTH AND SAFETY

Employees must be aware of the responsibilities placed upon them under the
Health & Safety at work Act (1974), to ensure that the agreed safety procedures are
carried out to maintain a safe environment for employees and visitors.

11. RISK MANAGEMENT

All staff have a responsibility to report all clinical and non-clinical accidents,
incidents or near-misses promptly and when requested to co-operate with any
investigations undertaken.

12. EQUALITY AND DIVERSITY

All employees of the Trust have responsibility to:

 Act in ways that support equality and value diversity.
 Treat everyone with whom they come into contact with dignity and respect.
 Act in ways that are in accordance with Trust’s Single Equality Scheme,
Equality and Diversity policy, and Dignity in the Workplace policy.

13. SAFEGUARDING
All employees have a duty for safeguarding and promoting the welfare of children
and adults at risk. Staff must be familiar with the trusts Safeguarding Policy and the
process for raising concerns about the welfare of anyone with whom they have
contact. Staff must also ensure they receive the appropriate level of safeguarding
children and adult training depending on their role in the Trust.

Staff are expected to access supervision and support from their line managers
and/or the locality based safeguarding team when managing complex cases where
applicable to their role.

14. INFORMATION GOVERNANCE

The post holder must keep up to date with the requirements of information
governance; undertake mandatory training and follow Trust policies and procedures
to ensure that trust information is dealt with legally, securely, efficiently and
effectively.

It is important that the post holder processes personal identifiable information only in
accordance with the Trust Data Protection Act notification to the Information
Commissioner. The post holder must check with the Data Protection Officer before
creating new systems to process person identifiable information to ensure that this
is carried out within the scope of the Data Protection Act 2018 notification.

The post holder must manage the records they create or hold during the course of
their employment with the Trust in an appropriate way, making the records available
for sharing in a controlled manner subject to statutory requirements and agreed
security and confidentiality policies, procedures and guidelines e.g. Data Protection
Act 2018, Freedom of Information Act 2000, General Data Protection Regulations,
Caldicott Guidelines NHS Confidentiality Code of Conduct 2003, and professional
codes of conduct on confidentiality.

The post holder must maintain the confidentiality of information about service user
staff and organisational business in accordance with the new Data Protection Act
2018 and Caldicott principles.

It is likely that the post holder will be in contact at some time with a form of
information system, and therefore is responsible for implementing and maintaining
data quality. The post holder, when making entries into records, must ensure that
these are legible and attributable and that the record keeping is contemporaneous.
It is essential that information recorded within records either on paper, in an
electronic format or both paper and electronic is accurate, complete and relevant.

PERSON SPECIFICATION
POST TITLE: Band 6 Children’s Physiotherapist

Factor Essential Desirable

Qualifications  HCPC registration Evidence of
Continuing
 Degree or equivalent in Professional
Physiotherapy Development

 Computer Literate

Knowledge  Broad knowledge of a range of  Broad knowledge

Physiotherapy treatment of a range of
techniques paediatric
treatment
 Some knowledge of the techniques
appropriate legislation relating to
children  Knowledge of
current NHS
trends which
influence service
provision

 oPost qualification
training in
paediatric therapy
or techniques.

Skills and Aptitudes  Organisational skills demonstrated

for example by the involvement in
a particular project

 Caseload management skills –

especially identifying priorities and
meeting deadlines.

 Competence in therapeutic
handling.

 Excellent verbal and written

communication skills

 Ability to work alone as well as part

of a team

 Presentation skills
Personal  This post will require working in
Circumstances Community settings across
West Cumbria and therefore
include travel to these sites.

 Full UK driving licence

 Some flexibility in work pattern

may be necessary.

Other requirements  Equality and Diversity: Support  Previous use

equality and value diversity of a computer
(Level 2) based data
collection
 Experience of working in acute system
or community settings

 Post graduate therapy

experience in a multi
disciplinary team

 Experience of working with

children in a professional or
voluntary capacity

PERSON SPECIFICATION AGREEMENT

Post holder ………………………………………..

Date ………………………………………..

Line Manager ………………………………………..

Date ………………………………………..