UHWA Candidate Advanced Practice Occupational Therapist

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Principal Duties and Responsibilities

A candidate Advanced Practice Occupational Therapist will develop competency at a higher level across the four pillars of advanced practice as defined in the HSE HSCP Advanced Practice Framework (2023).

The four pillars are:

• Clinical Practice
• Leadership and Management
• Education and Facilitation of Clinical Learning
• Evidence, Research and Service Development

Clinical Practice

A candidate Advanced Practice Occupational Therapist will be supported to develop their skills and knowledge to an advanced level. The candidate Advanced Practice Occupational Therapist will

• Practise in compliance with their respective code of professional conduct and within their scope of practice, being responsible and accountable for their decisions, actions, and omissions at this level of practice.
• Develop and demonstrate a critical understanding of their broadened level of responsibility, autonomy and the limits of own competence and professional scope of practice, including when working with complexity, risk, uncertainty, and incomplete information.
• Develop capabilities and competence to practice autonomously and as part of a team, using advanced knowledge, skills, critical thinking, and evidence.
• Develop and implement the highest quality clinical practice. Be supported to create a culture of continuous improvement and innovation.
• Work to develop capabilities to create and implement comprehensive service user management, as part of a multi-professional team, using advanced level clinical reasoning, shared service user decision making, and evidence based clinical knowledge and skills, to achieve optimum outcomes for service user and the service/organisation.
• Develop and demonstrate a high level of knowledge in relation to patterns of disease or disorder, markers of condition progression, differential diagnosis and range of treatment available at each stage of disorder or condition, including recognition of red flags and potentially complex and serious presentations and the need for expedited onward referral to the appropriate team.
• Develop and demonstrate a high level of awareness and recognition of the psycho-social impact of disease and disorders on service users and their families.
• Under supervision, undertake specialist assessment of service users in partnership with individuals, families and carers using a range of methods and tools informed by theory and evidence.
• Develop their expertise and decision-making skills to inform clinical reasoning when dealing with differentiated and undifferentiated individual Presentations and complex situations, synthesising information from multiple sources to make appropriate, evidence-based judgements and/or diagnoses. This will involve developing and demonstrating competence in planning, implementing, and evaluating the care delivery according to service user needs.
• Under supervision, play a direct role in the management of complex service user, as part of a multi-professional team or autonomously, including assessment of the service user’s relevant history, developing an investigation strategy, including where appropriate referring for, or conducting tests, interpreting results where appropriate to the profession, and agreeing a management and treatment plan in partnership with the service user and family, carers, medical staff, and the multi professional team.
• Where appropriate to profession and role, develop the skills to take a history, assess, examine, diagnose, prescribe and develop a management plan including medication and /or diagnostic imaging and monitor response to medication/treatment in line with HSE Policy.
• Develop and demonstrate a clear understanding of the legal context for anti-oppressive practice, promotion of human rights and social justice in diverse health and social care settings and an ability to balance the risks and rights of the service user, liaising with and referring to their relevant health and social care professionals as required.
• Develop advanced understanding and ability to navigate healthcare settings. Advise and communicate as appropriate with acute hospitals, primary and social care and community teams thus ensuring seamless continuity and transfer of care for service users between other relevant healthcare professionals, health and social care services, third sector agencies, and other care settings.
• Develop capabilities to establish, maintain, and effectively manage barriers to advanced, highly skilled, and effective communication with service users, carers and healthcare professionals. This includes imparting information regarding diagnosis, prognosis and treatment of complex conditions and referring to other MDT teams as appropriate to promote integrated working and to improve service user outcomes.
• Develop and demonstrate an advanced ability to enhance and promote the rights of a person to actively participate in their healthcare management through shared decision making by taking into consideration the service users’ wishes, goals, attitudes, beliefs and circumstances.
• Develop and demonstrate shared decision making with all individuals involved in determining and managing goals, clinical interventions, social prescribing, and measurable outcomes to ensure integrated service user care to serve the individual’s best interest.
• Develop and demonstrate a knowledge of digital transformation in healthcare through the application of digital technologies to enhance or modify service user focused care.
• Learn to use data analysis to streamline service delivery, improve access to care for service users, carers and relevant stakeholders, facilitate preventative care and avoidable admissions/re-admissions.
• Develop and demonstrate an advanced ability to integrate and apply evidence-informed approaches in the presentation of health promotion and preventative care programmes and the importance of social networks, clinical and non-clinical groups and services.

Leadership and Management

The candidate Advanced Practice Occupational Therapist will:

• Develop and provide leadership across professional & organisational teams aiding and improving person-centred care though team development, keeping a focus on quality improvement andservice excellence as appropriate to the role.
• Develop leadership skills and foster a culture of promoting a safe and supportive working environment for students’, practitioners’ and colleagues’ health and wellbeing to ensure the highest quality service user care.
• Perform professional supervision and systematic peer review of colleagues on an individual or group basis and engage with supervision.
• Develop as a role model, providing professional leadership to the team and promoting the desired behaviours of being proactive, positive, respectful, supportive, reliable and trustworthy as appropriate to the role.
• Act a supervisor, coach and mentor and seek to instil and develop the professional expertise confidence of others as appropriate to the role.
• Build capabilities to critically apply advanced clinical expertise in appropriate facilitative ways to provide consultancy across professional and service boundaries, influencing clinical practice to enhance quality, reduce unwarranted variation and promote the sharing and adoption of best practice.
• Demonstrate team leadership, resilience and determination, managing situations that are unfamiliar, complex or unpredictable and seeking to build confidence in others as appropriate to the role.
• Build capabilities to assess and establish the need for change, support, lead and manage change at local, regional and national level. Monitor the effectiveness and impact of change for service users, relatives, staff and services. Consider cost, efficiency, access and quality when making care decisions and improvements/ developments in practice.
• As appropriate to role, contribute to strategic review of clinical effectiveness and management of resources at local, regional and national level and contribute to developments and innovation in hand wrist services, (e.g. national clinical programmes/national groups/clinical interest groups/local improvement groups) both within and external to the profession.
• Continually develop practice in response to changing population health needs, engaging in horizon scanning for future developments (e.g. impacts of genomics, new treatments and changing social challenges).
• Develop capabilities to provide leadership across professional and organisational teams with a focus on improving service user centred care through quality assurance/improvement, service excellence initiatives and digital transformation, relevant to area of practice.
• Develop ability to lead and collaborate on the development of standards of practice and protocols at local/national levels. Lead in professional practice including respecting and promoting equity and diversity.
• Engage in health policy development, implementation, and evaluation by utilising evidence-based insights and performance metrics (for example, key performance indicators from the National Clinical and Integrated Care Programme, HSE National Service Plan, and local and regional service needs) to influence and shape the future development and direction of advanced practice in Hand Wrist
• Identify gaps in care and service provision within their area of advanced practice and expand services to enhance quality, effectiveness, and safety in response to evolving healthcare needs, while also recognising and acting on opportunities to influence and shape policy and guidelines at a local, regional and national level.
• Build competency to influence practice by supporting and developing lateral thinking in self and others
• Work collaboratively across boundaries to develop and raise awareness of relevant policies, guidelines and strategies and influence positive changes at local and national level.
• Network with a wide range of organisations and individuals to share and respond to policy and strategy at local, regional and national level.
• Represent organisation/service/profession/HSCP at a national and international level.

Education and Facilitation of Clinical Learning

The candidate Advanced Practice Occupational Therapist will

• Develop capabilities to critically assess and address own learning and development needs, negotiating a personal development plan to maintain currency of knowledge and skills that reflect the breadth of ongoing professional development across the four pillars of advanced clinical practice. Engage in self-directed learning, critically reflecting to maximise advanced clinical skills and knowledge, as well as own potential to lead and develop both care, services and service user advocacy.
• Work in collaboration with the wider team and support peer review processes to identify ongoing individual and team developmental and learning needs, and work in partnership to address these.
• Support the wider team to build capacity and capability through evidence-based practice and interprofessional learning.
• Educate and develop others in advanced practice by supporting and facilitating colleagues.
• Advocate and contribute to continuous learning and development and succession planning.
• Promote the profession and share learning and experience by presenting at local, regional and national meetings, courses and conferences.
• Act as educator, supervisor, mentor and coach to support continuous professional development of individuals and the team.
• Collaborate with the service manager, regional HSCP leads, higher education institutions, practice tutors and practice education co-ordinators to provide and support clinical placements.
• Assist in the design and/or delivery of education programmes, including undergraduate and post-graduate programmes, as part of a partnership approach with education providers, based on identified and emerging learning needs, and service/organisational need.
• Establish and /or maintain mutually beneficial relationships with the higher education institutions to support development and delivery of education training and programmes relevant to learning needs.
• Contribute to ongoing education at local, regional and national level in the relevant areas of practice, in response to identified needs and emerging changes in service developments.
• Lead and contribute to a range of audit and evaluation strategies to inform education and learning developments.
• Engage with, appraise and respond to individuals’ motivation, development stage and capacity, working collaboratively to support health literacy and empower individuals to participate in decisions about their care and to maximise their health and wellbeing aligned with the HSE strategy and policy.
• Collaborate with service users in developing service user focused education materials.
• Develop skills, awareness and model inclusion of service user.
• Advocate for and contribute to a culture of organisational learning to inspire future and existing staff.
• Act as an advanced clinical advisor locally to the regional organisation, MDT team and own colleagues and nationally regarding education, learning and development and service user advocacy.

Evidence, Research, Development & Audit

The candidate Advanced Practice Occupational Therapist will:

• Develop skills to critically evaluate and synthesise the evidence available and make appropriate judgements on implementation in practice despite incomplete or paradoxical evidence.
• In collaboration with other staff/colleagues, ensure that the approach to all levels of clinical practice is person-centred, evidence based in accordance with professional practice, national guidelines/models of care and national/local/international benchmarks.
• Develop capabilities to lead and develop a culture of enquiry that promotes supports and encourages participation in evidence-based practice, including research, service evaluation, quality improvement (Q.I.) and audit.
• Take a critical approach to identify gaps in the evidence base and its application to practice, alerting appropriate individuals and organisations to these and how they might be addressed in a safe and pragmatic way and where possible also plan and deliver the research to address these gaps.
• Develop capabilities to lead audit of service and evaluation of clinical activities to ensure a person-centred focus, enhance quality, safety, productivity and value for money and mapping to national models of care/clinical pathways and guidelines/standards of care.
• Bring critical analysis to the practice of the evolving clinical/scientific specialism, ensuring that regular review of research and evidence is undertaken so that where adaptation to practice is required, it can be made in a timely and cost-effective manner.
• Develop and demonstrate the advanced use of outcome measures to evaluate the effectiveness of clinical interventions and services and use outcomes to inform future planning and development.
• Facilitate collaborative links between clinical practice and research through proactive engagement, networking with academic, clinical and other active researchers locally and nationally.
• Recognise research project resourcing requirements and the need to balance the competing clinical, leadership and research demands of the role.
• Develop and demonstrate a clear understanding of information and research governance and is able to apply to national and local policies and practice including adherence to the most up to date HSE Policy for data protection and most up to date guidance for the governance, management and support for health research.
• Disseminate evidence-based practice, audit, quality improvement projects and research findings to relevant audiences using various media and fora.
• Develop capabilities to lead, facilitate and/or participate in clinical knowledge translation and dissemination in training sessions/journal clubs, case reviews and other fora.
• Document research, case studies, critical reviews and share with colleagues and the public at local and national level as appropriate and in a suitable format.

Risk Management, Quality, Health & Safety

The candidate Advanced Practice Occupational Therapist will:

• Exercise professional judgement in development of policies/ procedures/ guideline and protocols to support risk management as appropriate and as required, especially where there may be complex and unpredictable events and supporting teams to do likewise to ensure safety of individuals, families, and carers.
• Adequately identify, assess, manage and monitor risk within their area of responsibility.
• Have a working knowledge of the Health Information and Quality Authority (HIQA) Standards as they apply to the role for example, Standards for Healthcare, National Standards for the Prevention and Control of Healthcare Associated Infections, Hygiene Standards etc. and comply with associated HSE protocols for implementing and maintaining these standards as appropriate to the role.
• Support, promote and actively participate in sustainable energy, water and waste initiatives to create a more sustainable, low carbon and efficient health service.
• Engage in the HSE performance achievement process in conjunction with Line Manager and staff as appropriate.
• Be familiar with and responsible for attending the necessary education, training and support to enable them to meet this responsibility.
• Foster and support a quality improvement culture throughout their area of responsibility.
• Take reasonable care for their own actions and the effect that these may have on the safety of others.
• Be responsible for ensuring they become familiar with the requirements stated within and that they comply with the local/ regional and national PPPGs.
• Have a working knowledge of PPPGs in relation to the care and safety of any equipment supplied for the fulfilment of duty within the candidate Advanced Practice Occupational Therapy role. Ensure the advice of relevant stakeholders is sought prior to procurement.

The above Job Specification is not intended to be a comprehensive list of all duties involved and consequently, the post holder may be required to perform other duties as appropriate to the post which may be assigned to them from time to time and to contribute to the development of the post while in office.