Job Introduction
Urgent Primary Care Doctor – Bank (Home Visiting)
Bring urgent primary care to the patients who need it most - in their own homes.
Urgent care is General Practice at its most immediate.
Not every patient who needs urgent care can come to us. Some are housebound, frail, approaching the end of life or have been clinically assessed as needing a face-to-face review in their own home.
What they need is an experienced doctor who can listen, assess, make confident clinical decisions and get them to the right care.
At IC24, we're looking for Urgent Primary Care Doctors to work within our Home Visiting Service across Kent.
You'll work alongside our drivers, dispatch teams and wider urgent care colleagues, providing safe, timely and effective care to patients in their own homes.
If you enjoy the variety of General Practice, the autonomy of home visiting and the clinical challenge of assessing and treating patients in their own environment, this could be the role for you.
What you'll focus on
→ Assessing and treating patients in their own homes
You'll provide face-to-face assessment, diagnosis and treatment for patients who have been clinically triaged as requiring a home visit.
You'll see patients with a broad range of urgent primary care needs, considering not just the immediate clinical problem but their wider circumstances, environment and support needs.
You'll assess what's happening, decide what needs to happen next and ensure patients receive appropriate treatment, referral and safety-netting.
→ Making confident clinical decisions
Home visiting requires sound clinical judgement.
You'll often be working with patients you haven't met before, sometimes with limited background information and sometimes when they're anxious, unwell or experiencing difficult circumstances.
You'll need to be able to assess risk, manage uncertainty and make safe decisions independently, recognising when a patient can be treated and supported at home and when they need escalation or an alternative care setting.
→ Treating the whole patient
Seeing someone in their own home can give you a very different perspective on their health.
You'll care for patients across ages and backgrounds, including older and frail patients, people with complex health needs and those approaching the end of their lives.
You'll consider the patient's clinical presentation alongside their environment, support network and wider circumstances to determine what they need to remain safe.
→ Keeping patients safely in their community
Not every patient who needs urgent care needs to be in an Emergency Department.
Where clinically appropriate, you'll help patients remain safely at home by putting the right treatment, advice, referrals and safety-netting in place.
You'll work with community nursing, pharmacy, paramedic, primary care and wider healthcare teams to support continuity of care.
And when hospital or another service is the right place for a patient, you'll recognise that and escalate appropriately.
→ Working independently, but never in isolation
Home visiting is autonomous by nature.
You'll be making important clinical decisions in patients' homes without the immediate infrastructure of a traditional clinical setting around you.
But you'll remain part of the wider IC24 team.
You'll work closely with our drivers and dispatch colleagues and communicate with other health and care professionals to make sure patients receive timely, joined-up care.
→ Maintaining excellent clinical standards
You'll work within IC24's clinical governance framework and prescribing formulary, maintaining accurate and timely clinical records and working in accordance with GMC guidance and relevant national and local clinical standards.
You'll maintain your CPD and essential learning and have opportunities to contribute to audit, learning events, education and quality improvement.
This is urgent care beyond the consulting room
No two home visits will necessarily look the same.
You'll see patients with everything from relatively straightforward acute illness to complex physical, mental health and social circumstances.
Sometimes the answer will be clear.
Sometimes you'll need to piece together limited information, understand what's happening around the patient and make an important clinical decision without having every investigation immediately available.
You'll probably thrive here if you:
- Enjoy autonomous clinical practice
- Are confident assessing undifferentiated patients
- Have strong face-to-face consultation and home visiting skills
- Can make sound clinical decisions independently
- Are comfortable managing risk and uncertainty
- Can make safe decisions without having every investigation immediately available
- Are confident caring for frail, complex and end-of-life patients
- Communicate clearly and compassionately with patients, relatives and carers
If you prefer working within a predictable clinic environment with immediate access to a wider clinical team, home visiting may not be the right fit.
But if you value clinical autonomy, variety and the opportunity to deliver genuinely patient-centred care in people's own homes, we'd like to hear from you.
What you'll bring
You'll:
- Hold current GMC registration
- Be an MRCGP Graduate
- Have relevant clinical experience within areas such as Primary Care, Emergency Medicine, A&E or previous Out of Hours experience
- Have experience of face-to-face clinical consultation
The environment you'll work in
Urgent care operates around the needs of our patients, so flexibility is an important part of this role.
Hours include evenings, weekends, overnights and Bank Holidays.
You'll work from our Kent Home Visiting dispatch points, travelling out into the community to assess and treat patients in their own homes.
Home visiting is responsive by nature, so priorities can change during a shift. You'll need to be comfortable adapting while maintaining safe, thoughtful and compassionate care.
Who are we?
We are Integrated Care 24 (IC24), the leading not-for-profit Social Enterprise providing innovative and patient-focused primary and urgent care services.
IC24 is committed to improving access to health and social care for our patients and reducing demand on secondary care services.
We provide services to over six million patients, including GP Out of Hours, NHS 111, Primary Care and Integrated Urgent Care services.
Every day, our people help patients access the care they need, when they need it most.
Locations
Margate Pilgrims Hospice - Queen Elizabeth The Queen Mother Hospital, Ramsgate Road, Margate, CT9 4AD
Canterbury Medical Practice - The Annexe, Canterbury Medical Practice, Ethelbert Road, Canterbury, CT1 3NR
IC24 - Kingston House, The Long Barrow, Orbital Park, Ashford, TN24 0GP
What's in it for you?
- Hourly pay of £58.69 per hour plus enhancements for unsociable hours
- Enhanced Bank Holiday rates
- Opportunity to join the NHS Pension Scheme
- Free 24/7 independent counselling service
- Learning and development opportunities
- Free membership to our reward and discount platform
- Access to Blue Light Card and other NHS Discount Schemes
We celebrate brave ideas and brave people.
Due to the nature of this position, employment is subject to proof of eligibility to work in the UK, completion of a satisfactory enhanced DBS disclosure with barred list checks and three years of references.
We have a duty to safeguard, protect and promote the welfare of those who use our services and our employees. This means we take every step we can to protect from harm, abuse and damage.
We are committed to providing equal opportunities for all and encourage applications from ethnic minorities, those with disabilities, LGBTQ+ communities, neurodiverse individuals, and other under-represented groups. We’re dedicated to creating an inclusive environment where everyone feels they belong.
If you need any workplace adjustments during the application or interview process, or have accessibility requirements, please contact the recruitment team.
Please note: We may close this vacancy early if we receive a high number of applications, so we encourage you to apply as soon as possible.
