Advanced Nurse Practitioner, Acute Medicine, General Hospital

Details of

Service

Bantry General Hospital (BGH) is a model 2 rural and remote hospital serving the population of West Cork and South Kerry. BGH is the only model 2 hospital nationally receiving 999 ambulance calls and accepting undifferentiated medical patients. This is due to the large rural catchment area of the hospital and long distances to the nearest model 3 or model 4 hospital.

Inpatient bed capacity:

• Medical (50-bed)
• Rehabilitation (12-bed)
• Outpatient and day patient care services (21-bed).
• The service also has a Residential Unit (24) beds.

BGH delivers elective day case Surgical and Endoscopy services.

Other Services provided:

General medicine, Gerontology, Endocrinology, Gastroenterology, Dermatology and Palliative Care and a Medical Assessment Unit, which is the admission pathway for the medical patients, along with and a High Dependency Unit to support inpatient medical activity (4 bed).

Injuries Unit, Outpatients Department, Physiotherapy, and Diagnostic services

Bantry General also incorporates the unique position of a HIQA Registered residential Unit within the governance of the Hospital

Specialist nursing includes:

ANP Acute Medicine, Diabetes, & Dementia. CNS posts in Cardiology, Stroke, Diabetes, Dementia, Infection Control, Discharge coordinators & Endoscopy Validation. A Practice development unit incorporating, ADON, CMN2, Project officer & CPC supporting ongoing professional development.

The National Acute Medicine Clinical Programme (NAMP) commenced in 2012. One of the roles of the NAMP is to standardise and improve the management of acute medical patients over 16 years of age (HSE 2010) through the development of Acute Medical Units (AMU) and Medical Assessment Units (MAU). The purpose of these medical units is to provide timely assessment, diagnosis, and early specialised management of a wide range of medical conditions. With the overall aim of decreasing overcrowding in Emergency Departments, reducing admission rates, and decreasing lengths of stay.

The Advanced Nurse Practitioner (ANP) service in MAU aims to provide safe, timely, evidence-based nurse led care.

Which focuses on:

· The management of lower acuity patients

· Management and development of the ambulatory care pathways within the Medical Assessment Unit (MAU).

· Providing continuity of care for patients and referrers to the MAU

· Supporting effective patient flow within the MAU

· Supporting timely discharge or admission

· Provides a seamless service for patients

· Improved patient outcomes through health promotion, education, and risk reduction.

The NAMP recommend the improvement and standardisation of patient care through local development and use of evidence-based guidelines, algorithms and pathways. The ANP service at BGH manages and develops such pathways to facilitate ambulatory care services, improve patient flow, ensure a consistent standard of care and prevent unnecessary admissions. Ambulatory care pathways managed/developed by the ANP service to date include VTE, TIA, management of electrolyte disturbances, and chest pain.

Purpose of the Post

The advanced practice service is provided by nurses who practice at a higher level of capability as independent, autonomous and expert advanced practitioners. The overall purpose of the service is to provide safe, timely, evidenced based nurse-led care to patients at an advanced nursing level. This involves undertaking and documenting complete episodes of patient care, which include comprehensively assessing, diagnosing, planning, treating and discharging patients in accordance with collaboratively agreed local policies, procedures, protocols and guidelines and/or service level agreements/ memoranda of understanding.

The RANP Acute Medicine demonstrates advanced clinical and theoretical knowledge, critical thinking, clinical leadership and complex decision-making abilities.

The RANP Acute Medicinepractices in accordance with the Code of Professional Conduct and Ethics for Registered Nurses and Registered Midwives, Incorporating the Scope of Practice and Professional guidance (NMBI, 2025), Advanced Practice (Nursing) Standards and Requirements (NMBI, 2017), and the Values for Nurses and Midwives in Ireland (Department of Health, 2016).

The RANP Acute Medicine service provides clinical leadership and professional scholarship in the delivery of optimal nursing services and informs the development of evidence based health policy at local, regional and national levels.

The RANP Acute Medicine contributes to nursing research that shapes and advances nursing practice, education and health care policy at local, national and international levels.

The post requires an ANP in Acute Medicine with the knowledge, skill and competence to manage locally agreed specific caseload of patients who are admitted to the MAU under the Medical Consultant Physicians. The scope of the ANP is determined through exploration of service need and is not static.

Informal Enquiries

We welcome enquiries about the role.

Contact Merline Tagaram Director of Nursing, Merline.tagaram@hse.ie /0867871976- for further information about the role

Contact Tamara Broderick - People Resourcing, tamara.broderick@hse.ie – for enquiries relating to the recruitment process