Healthcare Assistant

Are you ready to unlock your potential within a challenging, creative and fast paced work environment? Do you want to escape your current job role and work with people to build positive and productive lives, whatever their past? Now is the time to break into offender healthcare and develop your career.
As part of the South West Prison Healthcare contract awarded to Oxleas NHS trust in 2022, we are able to expand recruitment and are looking for several compassionate, knowledgeable and motivated HCA's to join our friendly team at HMP Bristol
Our healthcare team have a real impact on promoting health and well-being to those in prison and we pride ourselves on using skills and strategies that instil hope for patients future resettlement back into the community. We directly deliver Mental Health, Physical Health, Pharmacy and Clinical Substance Misuse in an integrated healthcare delivery model to provide effective and responsive care to improve wellbeing and support better outcomes in the future.
As part of our primary care team, you will enjoy all the benefits of NHS AfC employment (inc pension) with the opportunity to work within a forward-thinking service, who encourage career and personal development to all staff to increase their clinical and interpersonal skills.
As a Healthcare Assistant you will assist in the delivery of high quality nursing care to patients in HMP Bristol with the support of a registered nurse.
You will be providing physical care to patients according to a written care plan. This will include actively engaging with patients in the provision of holistic, needs-led care which will take into account physical, psychological, emotional, social and spiritual needs of the individual. You will be promoting health and well-being through the delivery of health promotion activities and programmes, responding to patients needs and assisting patients to attain optimal physical health.
Applicants are required to have hospital/primary care experience and be competent at taking blood pressure, ECGs and other observations. Knowledge of wound care is also a requirement for this post.
Wondering what its like to work within offender healthcare?
"Working in the prison service can seems scary at first but you'll have the support you need from your team to make a difference every day.
I see the prison as an individual community where I work with a variety of people and provide urgent care, routine health screens like a GP practice and complex needs care to the patients. I have the unique opportunity to support someone throughout their time in prison and make a significant difference to their lives. Furthermore, see them grow, change and improve their general health." Ellen, Clinical Lead, Oxleas NHS Foundation Trust
Oxleas offers a wide range of NHS healthcare services to people in community and secure environment settings. Our services include community health care such as district nursing and speech and language therapy, care for people with learning disabilities and mental health care such as psychiatry, nursing and therapies. Our multidisciplinary teams look after people of all ages and we work in close partnership with other parts of the NHS, local councils and the voluntary sector and through our new provider collaboratives. Our 4,300 members of staff work in many different settings including hospitals, clinics, prisons, secure hospitals, children’s centres, schools and people’s homes.
We have over 125 sites in a variety of locations in the South of England. In London we operate within the Boroughs of Bexley, Bromley Greenwich and into Kent. We manage hospital sites including Queen Mary’s Hospital, Sidcup and Memorial Hospital, Woolwich, as well as the Bracton Centre, our medium secure unit for people with mental health needs. We are the largest NHS provider of prison health services providing healthcare to prisons within Devon, Dorset, Bristol, Wiltshire and Gloucestershire, Kent and South London. We are proud of the care we provide and our people.
Our purpose is to improve lives by providing the best possible care to our patients and their families. This is strengthened by our new values:
We’re Kind
We’re
We Listen
We Care
Responding to the needs of patients in an honest, non judgemental and open manner, which respects the rights of individuals and groups.
Actively engaging with patients in the provision of holistic, needs-led care which takes into account the physical, psychological, emotional, social and spiritual needs of individuals and groups.
Demonstrates a commitment to equal opportunities for all people.
Demonstrates a knowledge of the term ‘professional boundaries’ and how to applying this to working with patients, offenders and others.
Responding to the needs of people sensitively with regard for age, culture, race, gender, ethnicity, religion and disability, especially regarding patient privacy and dignity
Understanding the need for promoting health & well-being and the delivery of health promotion activities and programmes (including patient self-help programmes) in support of a registered nurse.
Understanding the need for and assisting patients to attain optimal physical health and assisting with physical procedures in support of a registered nurse.
Demonstrating good verbal and non-verbal communication skills
Contributing appropriately to risk assessment and individualised care planning
IMPORTANT INFORMATION, PLEASE READ:
All applicants must be willing to undertake National Security Vetting in order to work in a Prison Setting. This will be completed as part of the pre-employment checks through Oxleas and the prison vetting team.
You will need to provide:
Proof of right to work documentation
Proof of ID, needs to include 1 photographic ID
Proof of address documentation
Non-UK passport holders will need to have correct documentation (right to work in the UK) and a Home office Share code.
Address History:
5 years address history will be needed.
Applicants that are not UK Passport holders who provide less than 5 years UK address history will need to provide a Police Certificate which must be in English from where they resided previously.
Applicants who are UK Passport holders who have lived abroad for a period of more than six months during the last three years will need to provide a certificate of good conduct or an overseas police check in English from the countries resided in or visited .
In order to assist you in obtaining a Police Certificate, guidance can be sought from: https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/criminal-records-checks-for-overseas-applicants
If the country you have resided in is not listed here, you can obtain the necessary information by contacting the relevant Embassy or High Commission for that Country. Their contact details can be found on the Foreign & Commonwealth Office website ( http://www.fco.gov.uk/en ).