Nursing Assistant

Are you caring, compassionate, flexible and have excellent communication skills?

If yes, we have career opportunities available for you within Mersey Care as a Nursing / Health Care Assistant.

NVQ in Health and Social Care and/or experience of working in a care environment is essential.

We have roles available across Warrington and Halton Adult/Older Adult inpatient services with various shift patterns on a 24 hours per day, 7 days per week, 365 days per year basis.

Our values are at the heart of everything we do, they are:
Continuous improvement
Accountability
Respect
Enthusiasm
Support

If you share our values and want to be part of a team that makes a real difference, we want to hear from you.

You will support the clinical team in the delivery of a high standard of care by assisting with and carrying out a range of duties as directed by registered staff. This will be in line with individual care and treatment plans for patients and service users.

You will demonstrate an attitude which respects and values patients, service users and their carers ensuring they are at the centre of care and treatment planning.

Mersey Care is one of the largest trusts providing physical health and mental health services in the North West, serving more than 11 million people.

We offer specialist inpatient and community services that support physical and mental health and specialist inpatient mental health, learning disability, addiction and brain injury services. Mersey Care is one of only three trusts in the UK that offer high secure mental health facilities.

At the heart of all we do is our commitment to ‘perfect care’ – care that is safe, effective, positively experienced, timely, equitable and efficient. We support our staff to do the best job they can and work alongside service users, their families, and carers to design and develop future services together. We’re currently delivering a programme of organisational and service transformation to significantly improve the quality of the services we provide and safely reduce cost as we do so.

We need you to help us achieve and deliver our ambition.

Principal Responsibilities:
To carry out assigned duties, involving direct care and observation of service users under the guidance and indirect supervision of qualified staff.

To report to the qualified staff any observations made whilst providing care to service users activities and leisure, providing details of mental state and risk factors.

To work with service users on an individual and group basis as outlined in the care plan and as directed by the appropriate named lead professional.

Clinical:
To coordinate the assessment and delivery of a planned programme of care with guidance and indirect supervision from a qualified practitioner and to contribute to formal assessment and delivery of an individuals plan of care.

To assist with activities of daily living, social, recreational and occupational activities as agreed in the service user care plan.

To report general observations and provide feedback to a qualified practitioner both verbally and in written formats, if required. This should include any concerns arising from the service user physical or mental health.

To contribute to effective running of the service by providing and receiving information to/from other departments or services. Ensure this information is provided in the most effective way i.e. telephone, fax or in writing.

To assist service users with self-administration of oral medication and ensure any concerns / issues about medication are reported back to a qualified practitioner.

To use a variety of verbal and non-verbal skills to overcome communication barriers presented by service users due to their mental health needs.

To contribute to maintaining a safe environment for service user in the community (where appropriate).

To carry out specific duties that contributes to the assessment of service users as requested by a qualified practitioner.

To develop and maintain links with other agencies and services, both statutory and voluntary (where appropriate).

To use skills and techniques, to de-escalate situations where service users become physically or verbally aggressive.

To carry out observations and inform the Registered Nurse of any concerns. e.g. temperature, pulse, respiration, blood pressure, diet and fluid intake, weight as requested by a qualified practitioner.

To contribute to the development of risk management plans for service users by reporting, to the qualified practitioner any issues or concerns regarding service users behaviour / action towards themselves or others.

Respond to the changing needs of service users.

Control the assessments of implemented individual service users care plans.

To undertake and understand the support of observations as per policy.

To carry out escorts with service users on and off the hospital site.

To support qualified nurses in the administration of medicines by acting as a witness.

Provide advice and guidance related health promotion to the service user.

Plan social and therapeutic work with service user using a range of therapeutic approaches.

Participate in presenting multi disciplinary reviews, daily reviews and handovers.

Undertake surveys and audits.

Assist in the collection of data from a variety of resource.