Physician Associate Project Lead | Oxleas NHS Foundation Trust
| Posting date: | 16 April 2025 |
|---|---|
| Salary: | Not specified |
| Additional salary information: | £42,939 - £50,697 pa inc |
| Hours: | Full time |
| Closing date: | 16 May 2025 |
| Location: | Dartford, Kent,, DA2 7WG |
| Company: | Oxleas NHS Foundation Trust |
| Job type: | Contract |
| Job reference: | 7010258/277-7010258-CORP |
Summary
The Project Lead will undertake a programme of work over a one-year period to develop a workforce strategy for the employment and practice standards of PAs. This will involve engaging with a broad range of stakeholders to develop and promote a PA competency framework for PAs working in Mental Health supporting their clinical practice.
The successful candidate should have completed the Physician Associate Postgraduate Diploma/Masters from an accredited UK university.
Overview of the Post
Physicians Associates (PAs) are medically trained, generalist healthcare professionals who work alongside doctors and other members of the multidisciplinary team to provide medical care. Although their role is not always clearly defined and there is limited awareness within clinical services, they can play a valuable role supporting the mental health multidisciplinary team in healthcare delivery.
The Project Lead will undertake a programme of work over a one-year period to develop a workforce strategy for the employment and practice standards of PAs. This will involve engaging with a broad range of stakeholders to develop and promote a PA competency framework for PAs working in Mental Health supporting their clinical practice.
Oxleas offers a wide range of NHS healthcare services to people in community and secure environment settings. Our services include community health care such as district nursing and speech and language therapy, care for people with learning disabilities and mental health care such as psychiatry, nursing and therapies. Our multidisciplinary teams look after people of all ages and we work in close partnership with other parts of the NHS, local councils and the voluntary sector and through our new provider collaboratives. Our 4,300 members of staff work in many different settings including hospitals, clinics, prisons, secure hospitals, children’s centres, schools and people’s homes.
We have over 125 sites in a variety of locations in the South of England. In London we operate within the Boroughs of Bexley, Bromley Greenwich and into Kent. We manage hospital sites including Queen Mary’s Hospital, Sidcup and Memorial Hospital, Woolwich, as well as the Bracton Centre, our medium secure unit for people with mental health needs. We are the largest NHS provider of prison health services providing healthcare to prisons within Devon, Dorset, Bristol, Wiltshire and Gloucestershire, Kent and South London. We are proud of the care we provide and our people.
Our purpose is to improve lives by providing the best possible care to our patients and their families. This is strengthened by our new values:
• We’re Kind
• We’re Fair
• We Listen
• We Care
Key Tasks and Responsibilities
1. To build a recruitment campaign and aim to introduce PA roles in Oxleas.
2. To engage with the Directorate managers to identify teams that could benefit from having a PA in the skill mix plus consultants who could provide supervision.
3. Develop the skills of the team consultants to carry out their PA supervision role.
4. Work with senior managers and clinicians within the Trust to consider the PA workforce as a solution to workforce shortages and be innovative in ways of encouraging more reluctant colleagues to engage with PA expansion.
5. Work collaboratively with senior managers and clinicians within the Trust to enable change in relation to PA practice.
6. Map and understand the barriers to developing PA roles and work alongside stakeholders to overcome these.
7. Articulate a communication plan to improve understanding of the PA role within the Trust.
8. Develop a recruitment and workforce plan to grow the PA workforce, from training through to career progression.
9. Develop a competency framework for PA practice and support their assessment against this framework as part of a Training Needs Analysis to achieve practice assurance across the PA workforce.
10. Develop a CPD programme for PAs that ensures equal and fair access to development opportunities, in line with the regulatory body requirements, to support the revalidation of PAs.
11. Work in partnership with colleagues to promote and support an environment of learning.
12. Ensure the local practice of PAs supports requirements from national policy and local drivers.
13. Establish a proactive regional Physician Associate community or engage in existing ones to develop mechanisms for sharing best practice and clinical networking.
14. Provide reports and updates to relevant committees and meetings.
15. Responsibility for the project budget and ensuring the outcomes are delivered within the resources available.
16. Design an induction programme for new PA recruits.
17. To establish a project board consisting of the Medical Director, Director of Medical Education, Consultant Psychiatrists, Head of Medical Staffing, Trainee representatives and other interested professional heads.
This advert closes on Sunday 18 May 2025
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