Working For NEMS ::

Nurses and Primary Care Practitioners (PCPs)

Is NEMS for you?

NEMS employs experienced Registered Nurses and Primary Care Practitioners including Emergency Care Practitioners and Health Visitors. Our nurses typically have experience in a range of autonomous practice settings, such as practice nursing, community nursing, A&E or Walk-in Centre, or other ‘First Contact' Practitioner roles. Non-medical prescribers are also of interest to us. Many of our patients are children (approximately 40%) so Health Visiting and paediatric nursing skills are also desirable.

New starters will need to be trained in the use of the computer system used for telephone triage and for 'face to face' consultations. We profile individual staff skills against our requirements, assess individual training needs and develop customized training programmes.

We offer a range of opportunities from a minimum of eight hours a week as a second job, to full-time roles. Nurses and primary care practitioners are required predominantly in the 'out of hours' period.

However, we do have some work available during the normal working week. We currently provide a primary care practitioner service in the Emergency Department at the Queen’s Medical Centre – daily between 10:00 and midnight. This role is well suited to experienced nurses, PCPs and ECPs.

We also provide a daytime service to local GPs – the Clinical Navigator. This service offers alternatives to hospital attendance of admission for adults with urgent medical or surgical problems.

Working in the GP OOH Service

As the GP OOH service, we are here to deal with urgent need when the doctor's surgery is closed - that is, problems that cannot safely wait until the patient's surgery is next open.
In order to determine the need for care, nurses at NEMS provide telephone triage to patients. Full training will be given in the use of the TAS (Telephone Assessment Software), which supports the clinical decision making process. So, telephone triage is a key skill at NEMS.

Purpose of triage

The purpose of the triage is to rapidly determine whether there is a genuinely urgent need that can be dealt with by the OOH service or not, and if there is, how best to meet it. The key requirement here is to avoid a prolonged telephone assessment that results in a face to face contact or home visit. The need to see the patient has to be determined early on in the telephone assessment process. Currently, around 50% of patients' needs can be met with telephone advice alone. However, the remaining 50% of patients need to be seen face to face. These consultations may take place at NEMS or in the patient's own home and may be carried out by nurses or GPs, depending on the patient's clinical need.

Face to face care at NEMS

Patients will be given an appointment to attend NEMS to see either a nurse or a doctor. Nurses can complete many consultations as non-medical prescribers, or with the use of PGD's (patient group directives) and again, full training in the use of PGD's will be provided.