Clinical Specialist Ot Fitt

Description:

The post holder will deliver an integrated expert service to meet the occupational therapy needs of patients within the Care of the Elderly (COE) setting. He/she will join an experienced team of occupational therapists and multi-disciplinary colleagues delivering Beaumont Hospital’s COE services across a range of settings which includes the Emergency Dept (ED), Specialist Geriatric Wards (SGW’s), St Joseph’s Day Hospital and Rehabilitation Unit and the Raheny, Community Nursing Unit. He/she will work in collaboration with the occupational therapy manager and COE occupational therapists in planning, co-ordinating, delivering and evaluating the COE services.

The primary role of the clinical specialist OT in the COE services will be to lead the OT service within the Frailty Intervention Therapy (FIT) Team in the ED. The FIT Team is a Health and social Care Professional (HSCP) Team consisting of Physiotherapy, Occupational Therapy, Medical Social Work, Speech and Language Therapy, Dietetics and Pharmacy and has built strong links with the ED Nursing and Medical team. The FIT Team is dedicated to identifying frail older persons in the Emergency Department, providing early comprehensive multi-disciplinary assessment and thereby, improving overall patient outcomes and patient experience.

The main functions of the FIT Team are as follows:

1. Identify frail older people in the ED
2. Early generation of HSCP referrals
3. Initiate a Comprehensive Geriatric Assessment (CGA) in the ED using a standardised assessment process
4. Maintain an ethos of ‘every hour counts’ for the frail elderly in ED
5. Transferring suitable patients direct to appropriate destination as soon as possible