Director Of Nursing, Assistant, Patient Flow, Initial Vacancy: Month Specified Purpose Contract, University Hospital

Details of Service

Cork University Hospital (CUH) has approximately 800 beds and this will increase further to 1,000 beds on completion of the transfer of additional services to the CUH campus. CUH currently employs approximately 3,269 (WTE) staff of multiple professions and is the primary teaching hospital for the Faculty of Health and Science in University College Cork (UCC). UCC is the Academic partner of the South/South West Hospital Group. CUH has very strong relationships with each of the six schools within the Science Faculty of UCC and this is a key area for future development to maximise the opportunities for both the service and academia.

CUH is a recommended Major Trauma Centre for the Republic of Ireland due to the wide range of specialties delivered by the hospital – including Neurosciences, Cardiac Services, Orthopaedics, General Surgery, Renal, Internal Medicine, Vascular, Ophthalmology, Urology, Plastic Surgery, Maxillary-Facial, Paediatrics, Intensive Care, Oncology, Haematology, Obstetrics, Gynaecology, Neonatology and Emergency Medicine.

CUH is the tertiary referral centre for the HSE Southern area, and the supra regional area of Limerick, Clare, Tipperary, Waterford and Kilkenny. CUH therefore acts as a regional centre for secondary and tertiary care for the catchment population of approx. 550,000 served by the HSE Southern area and a supra-regional centre for a total a population of 1.1 million.

Sláintecare is about delivering a safe, quality health and social care service that meets the needs of our growing population, and attracts and retains the very best healthcare clinicians, managers, and staff. The new Sláintecare Implementation Strategy and Action Plan 2021-2023 sets out the priorities and actions for the next phase of the reform programme. The aim is to deliver a universal health service that offers the right care, in the right place, at the right time.

Six Health Regions have been established within the HSE, on the basis of the geographical boundaries agreed by the Government in July 2019 and they will be operational from 2024.

Each Health Region will be tasked with population specific planning resourcing and delivery of health and social care services for the needs of its unique population. This will result in improved accountability and governance in terms of finance and performance, while also bringing decision-making closer to the frontline.

Health Regions will enable and empower staff to provide services that are:

• Integrated, locally planned and delivered

• Easier to access and navigate

• Available closer to home

Health Regions are geographically-based units with clearly defined populations. They align community and hospital services within specific areas. The HSE will retain a strong but leaner central organisation, with more service provision developed at a local level.

The HSE South West health region will manage and deliver all public health and social care services in Cork and Kerry. HSE South West includes all hospital and community healthcare services in the region.

This includes:

• South / South West Hospital Group S/SWHG

• Cork Kerry Community Healthcare CKCH

• Midlands Louth Meath Community Health Organisation

• Community Healthcare Organisation Dublin North City and County

The Department of Population and Public Health is also now aligned with this health region

Services in the South West health region:

HSE Services working within this region include:

• Acute Hospitals

• Primary care services

• Community services

• Social care services

• Health and social care professionals

• Voluntary sector services

South / South West Hospital Group and Cork Kerry Community Healthcare will become part of HSE South West health region from 3rd March 2025 and the transition to the new structures will be taking place throughout 2025

Purpose of the Post

The Director of Nursing 1, Assistant (Patient Flow) serves as part of the Senior Nurse Management Team and will operate within the wider hospital management team.

The Director of Nursing 1, Assistant (Patient Flow) is responsible for the standard of nursing care within the directorate and leads the nursing team in the development and coordination of the service within the directorate’s defined priorities.

They translate directorate priorities for all nursing and healthcare assistant staff with the aim of achieving the best possible clinical outcomes and experience for patients.

As a core member of the directorate management team they play a significant role in leading, planning and commissioning new services, identifying continuous improvement to current services and identifying new innovative ways of delivering effective services.

The Director of Nursing 1, Assistant (Patient Flow) will:

· Liaise internally with Diagnostic Services, Bed Management Unit and In-Patient Wards/Units, and liaise externally with National Programmes, Quality Improvement Division, and Clinical Strategy and Programmes with a particular emphasis on Flow.

· Have a key role in the management of patient flow to and from the ED and AMU/AMDU to other departments within the hospital and externally.

· Engage and influence the performance of the hospital patient flow pathways and support systems to facilitate optimum efficiency and effectiveness and safe, responsive high quality patient services.

· Provide leadership and be accountable and responsible to further develop governance structures and within those have the authority to assess, plan, action, improve and review unscheduled care patient flow and KPIs.

· Engage and influence the prioritisation of patient access to diagnostic facilities in collaboration with clinicians and other key flow management personnel.

· Work collaboratively with “in house” colleagues, who have responsibility to drive processes essential to timely discharge such as plan for every patient, discharge planning, predicted date of discharge, criteria led discharge, use of discharge/transit area etc.

· Have responsibility for developing and enhancing relationships across the Primary and Community Care structures creating collaborative fora in order to improve integrated working and problem solving to reduce unnecessary attendances and support early discharge to the most appropriate setting.

· Collaborate with established clinical programmes to facilitate timely patient flow and will monitor (using data, analysis and intelligence) effectiveness and report on the performance of the patient pathways to the unscheduled care governance group and the executive management team.

· Identify and support opportunities to develop IT practices to enhance patient care and flow, and to increase efficiency while decreasing workload e.g. the development of systems to facilitate rapid ordering, tracing, and review of diagnostic testing, electronic bed mapping and navigational hub.

· Ensure that relevant timely data is available to support decision making and to assess quality improvement deliverables.

· Be involved in ongoing workforce planning to ensure the availability of appropriate numbers and levels of staff to meet patient need, including identifying opportunities for the development and roll out of advanced nursing practice roles which will increase the quality of patient care and clinical effectiveness, assist with departmental efficiency and improve patient flow.

· Be empowered to procure additional staff as needed in accordance with local arrangements, to ensure that the appropriate staffing complement is available.

· Monitor patterns of attendance at the department and use that data to establish appropriate staff rostering to meet anticipated demand. The data will also be used to determine if there are patterns of inappropriate attendance. Specific steps will be taken by the ADON to address patterns which are identified.

· Lead on the use of quality improvement methodologies to ensure the delivery of quality improvement projects that will provide safer better healthcare across the unscheduled care patient pathway.

· Lead on the quality assurance and verification agenda to ensure the delivery of safer better healthcare across the unscheduled care patient pathway.

· Be responsible for ensuring that the escalation policy is promptly implemented, and recorded as implemented, in accordance with the provisions of the escalation policy, and to ensure that the escalation policy overall is subject to regular and rigorous review.

· Ensure, as part of the management team, that prompt action is taken to identify general and specific health and safety risks. This will include regular consultation with appointed H&S representatives in the ED.

· Work collaboratively with and be supported by the Quality Improvement Division to develop skills and competencies in the application of Quality Improvement theory and methodologies e.g. ED Microsystems

Informal Enquiries

We welcome enquiries about the role.

Contact Ms Helen Cahalane–Director of Nursing, Helen.cahalane@hse.ie 086 7872211- for further information about the role

Contact Eimear O’Sullivan- Recruitment Function, Eimear.osullivan6@hse.ie – for enquiries relating to the recruitment process