Our Gynaecology and Secondary Breast Cancer Team are seeking a compassionate and adaptable individual to join our team on a part time job share as a Support Worker.
You will be based within the each of the Nursing Teams establishment and your role will provide support to the team of specialist nurses and to the patients accessing this service.
The post is predominately non-facing patient role but may involve occasional face to face, most of the role will entail providing direct information and support via email or telephone, and/or signposting to appropriate services for patients and their families/carers.
It will also entail organising and assisting the clinical nursing teams to provide the Cancer Nursing service effectively and efficiently ensuring patients queries and care can be actioned within a timely manner. Processing queries and referrals, guiding and signposting clinical queries and patient queries.
Should you choose to join us, you will do so working 16 hours per week on a fixed term contract until August 2026.
This role is for 2 days a week working in secondary breast care.
This is a new post to Gynaecology and Secondary Breast Cancer Services and aims to improve efficiencies within the pathways of care for patients diagnosed with Gynaecology and secondary Breast Cancers.
To provide general, specific and specialist information to patients and clinical teams regarding Gynaecological and Secondary Breast cancer and cancer services, to ensure patients are always signposted during their treatment and beyond.
Provide information and support for people with non-complex care needs.
To engage with the community services as appropriate
Recording patient information on the Trusts Systems
Contribute to maintaining and organising the day to day running of the Gynaecological and Secondary Breast Nursing service dealing with phone calls, referrals, emails, patient queries.
Why Work With Us - Our people are caring, committed, inclusive and focussed on quality. We focus on solutions and people’s strengths. We encourage outside the box thinking and embrace innovation and change wherever it can drive improvement.
If you share our values and vision and are passionate about working with people on what matters to them, you could be a real asset to Team Torbay and South Devon.
- Provide sensitive support and guidance to individuals who contact The Urology Cancer Nursing Service Support via multiple mediums i.e. face to face, telephone and MS teams.
- Communicate all information and advice using a range of advanced communication skills including use of reassurance, tact, and empathy.
- Assist in the triage of incoming phone calls and drop ins. This will include consideration of caller’s information and support needs, provision of verbal and written information, supportive listening, action planning and signposting to available services and support.
- Maintain accurate records using a wide range of trust systems
- Escalating complex decisions/queries to the Clinical Nurse specialists for assessment and review.
- Ensure that situations or enquiries requiring specialist intervention are referred appropriately and in a timely fashion.
- Demonstrate the ability to recognise and respond appropriately when faced with an individual in crisis and to act as appropriate, knowing when to signpost or refer onwards.
- Support information delivery to patients and carers on a wide range of matters within your field of expertise and recognise when onward referral is required.
- Support the Cancer Nurses in co-ordinating the day to day running of the information and support services.
- To support data collection to facilitate service improvements, quality and audit.
- To proactively identify patient and carer needs using the appropriate assessment and process to ensure that people get the right support to meet their needs. The role requires use of judgment in responding to the needs of individuals. The level of judgment required relates to identifying the complexity of the situation, providing appropriate advice and escalating to the Cancer Nurses, clinical team, community team where appropriate.
- Organise and prioritise the designated workload in relation to identified needs.
- Organise appointments as required.
- Make pre-planned outbound calls to patients to assess on going needs to enable a proactive prevention approach.
- Identify indicators of need or changes in need through telephone contact and respond appropriately.
- To signpost patients/carers directly to information resources to support people in making decisions about aspects of their own care, enable independence and support self-management as appropriate.
- Support the delivery of patient and carer information around topics such as reducing the risk of cancer and living with cancer and beyond treatment.
- Encourage and support active and healthy lifestyle choices.
- Support patients and carers to understand what signs, symptoms or situations to be aware of that would indicate concern.
- Support and inform patients and carers to understand how to make contact when they feel that their condition or needs have changed, including what to do out of hours
Additional elements for the role:
- Support and contribute to annual report and service review of this innovative new model of care and service provision
- Demonstrate self-directed learning, actively seeking role development opportunities to enhance practice, knowledge and role progression.
- Identify personal education needs and skills development.
- Provide administrative support to PSA tracker service, ensuring blood tests required are actioned and documented on the appropriate IT systems.
- Support the team with day-to-day running of the service and support clinical teams when required i.e. by providing information, responding to queries and attending meetings.
- Contribute to the continuous improvement and development of the service, identifying areas for change / improvement, suggesting new approaches and implementing changes in practice identified through other routes, such as surveys.
- Deputise at meetings where appropriate
