General Practitioner (GP) - Frailty Services

We’re building a new Hub at Newton Abbot Hospital to deliver integrated acute care closer to home for people living with frailty. The service will grow capacity and build on existing links between the Urgent Community Response team, Frailty Virtual Ward and HOP department, and add a new Same Day Emergency Care (SDEC)/ambulatory pathway. You’ll provide senior clinical decision-making at the community–acute interface—triaging referrals, streaming patients to the right part of the service, and supporting the wider MDT to assess and manage patients in community settings as a safe and effective alternative to inpatient care.Day to day, you’ll provide and enable “hospital-level” interventions at home or in ambulatory settings (e.g. arranging timely diagnostics, IV fluids/antibiotics/treatments, therapy reviews, medicines optimisation and deprescribing, advance care planning), use point-of-care testing/digital monitoring to support timely decisions where appropriate, and provide the medical aspects of the Comprehensive Geriatric Assessment (CGA. You’ll work within and through a strong MDT—UCR, Intermediate Care, Primary Care, ward teams and HOP colleagues—respecting and enabling collective MDT decision-making to deliver patient-centred care. You’ll model professional standards in documentation, governance and supervision, and contribute to service development, QI and teaching.Hold clinical risk in community settings: provide senior decision-making to patients living with frailty and complex care needs at home, in intermediate care beds or within the virtual ward; balance escalation vs admission, and making and documenting clear management plans. Lead clinical triage and streaming: deliver telephone clinical triage for referrers (e.g. Primary Care, community teams, SWASFT) and stream patients to the right part of the service (Virtual Ward, SDEC, community teams). Enable “hospital-level” care at home: arrange/oversee appropriate community interventions (e.g., monitoring, IV fluids/antibiotics, therapy reviews) and use point-of-care testing/digital monitoring to support timely decisions.Deliver CGA-led care: undertake specialist assessment and interventions following the principles of comprehensive geriatric assessment, including medicines review and deprescribing.Respect and strengthen MDT decisions: work with Urgent Care Response, Intermediate Care, Primary Care and ward MDTs; contribute to anticipatory care planning and ensure up-to-date TEPs representing patient wishes.Model professional standards: maintain accurate contemporaneous records; adhere to Trust policies and GMC standards; champion governance, audit and service improvement.Provide leadership and teaching: act as senior clinical voice for the Hub (deputising for Lead GP as required), supervise ACPs/trainees, and contribute to QI and service development.You’ll join a friendly, supportive team spanning our Virtual Ward, Urgent Community Response, hospital clinicians and the Newton Abbot ward team including Trust GPs, ACPs/trainee ACPs, therapists, nurses, consultants and a consultant nurse.We value kindness, respect and listening. We share learning, and celebrate successes and welcome ideas that improve the patient experience. You’ll be trusted to take ownership—and in return you’ll see the impact of your work every day.Why Work With UsFor further details / informal visits contact: Name: Katherine Bhatt Job title: GP Clinical Lead TSDFT Frailty Virtual Ward Email address: katharine.bhatt@nhs.net Telephone number: 01803 652997My working days are Tuesday-Friday