Social Prescriber- Havering Health

Job responsibilities

We do not provide visa sponsorship

JOB SUMMARY

The post holder will support older people living with frailty to live longer, healthier lives. They will work closely with Havering PCNs GP practices, the wider PCN team, the local authority, including social care and housing, and Voluntary Community and Social Enterprise organisations to ensure individuals receive appropriate, coordinated support.

Social Prescriber will assist patients whose care is coordinated by the PCN Aligned Community Team. Serves as a single point of contact for individuals and carers, coordinating the provision of comprehensive, integrated care in collaboration with other services and professionals, such as specialist community teams, social prescribers, voluntary sector organisations, and primary care.

The post holder will work with individuals from various cultural and social backgrounds. The ability to perform effectively in a diverse and occasionally demanding environment is required.

Training and support

The successful candidate will have excellent interpersonal and communication skills, strong organisational abilities, patience and empathy. They should have substantial experience as a social prescriber, having worked in health, social care, or the voluntary, community and social enterprise sector, with at least two years of direct engagement with individuals, families, or carers.

The post holder will be supported in their training and professional development by peers, line manager and clinical supervisor. The post holder will be encouraged to attend any training courses that are relevant to the role.

Key Responsibilities

Service Delivery

Build a robust knowledge of health, social and third sector provision available within Havering and surrounding areas.

Promote social prescribing, its role in self-management, and the wider determinants of health.

Build relationships with key staff in GP practices within havering PCN. Attend relevant meetings and integrate as part of the wider network team, providing information and feedback on social prescribing matters.

Work proactively to develop strong links with all local agencies to encourage referrals, to recognise services requirements and enable confident approach to making referrals.

Work in partnership with all local agencies to raise awareness of social prescribing and demonstrate how partnership working can reduce pressure on statutory services, improve health outcomes and enable a holistic approach to care.

Provide referring agencies with regular updates relating to social prescribing and include training for their staff to promote effective access to information and encourage appropriate referrals.

Work proactively in encouraging self-referrals and connecting with all local communities, particularly those communities that statutory agencies may find hard to reach.

Personalised Care and Support

Build relationships with patients, their families and carers. Meet people on a one-to-one basis, undertaking home visits where appropriate within organisations policies and procedures or consulting via the telephone giving people time to tell their stories and focus on what matters to me?

Build trust with the person, providing non-judgmental support, respecting diversity and lifestyle choices.

Anticipate barriers to communication.

Be a friendly source of information about wellbeing and prevention approaches.

Help people identify the wider issues that impact on their health and wellbeing, such as debt, poor housing, being unemployed, loneliness and caring.

Communicate effectively with patients, families and carers recognising the need for alternative communication methods of communication to overcome different levels of understanding, cultural background and preferred ways of communicating.

Help people maintain or regain independence through living skills, adaptations, enablement approaches and simple safeguards.

Work with individuals to co-produce a simple personalised support plan; based on the persons priorities, interests, values and motivations, including what they can expect from the groups, activities and services they are being connected to and what the person can do for themselves to improve their health and wellbeing.

Where appropriate, physically introduce people to community groups, activities and statutory services, ensuring they are comfortable. Provide follow-up to ensure that they are happy, engaged, included and receiving good support.

Where required and as appropriate, refer patients back to other health professionals within the PCN.

General Tasks

Produce accurate records of patient contact, consistent with legislation, policies and procedures.

Work closely with GP practices within the PCN to ensure that social prescribing referral codes are input into the clinical system and that the persons use of the NHS can be tracked, adhering to data protection legislation and data sharing agreements.

Understand and apply legal issues that support the identification of vulnerable and abused children and adults and be aware of statutory child/vulnerable patients health procedures and local guidance.

Work as part of the team to seek feedback, continually improve the service and contribute to business planning.

Undertake any tasks consistent with the level of the post and the scope of the role, ensuring that work is delivered in a timely and effective manner.

Duties may vary from time to time, without changing the general character of the post or the level of responsibility.

This post is subject to the Rehabilitation of Offenders Act (Exceptions Order) 1975 and as such it will be necessary for a submission for Disclosure to be made to the Disclosure and Barring Service (formerly known as CRB) to check for any previous criminal convictions.

Collaborative working relationships

Works within the primary care team, contributing to leadership of service ...