Breast Clinical Nurse Specialist

at  Whittington Health NHS Trust

We are seeking a dedicated and knowledgeable professional to join our Breast Multi-Disciplinary Team (MDT) as a key member. The successful candidate will provide expert advice and support to patients with breast malignancies and their families, guiding them from diagnosis through all stages of treatment and follow-up care. This role involves managing a personal caseload, coordinating care, and ensuring effective communication with all professionals involved in the patient’s journey.
The post holder will play a crucial role in delivering specialist knowledge and education to staff and patients and facilitate a seamless patient pathway. Additionally, the candidate will develop and monitor care standards in accordance with national guidelines and act as a key worker, ensuring patients have access to vital information and support. Responsibilities also include the collection and entry of national data requirements, contributing to local and national audits.
If you are passionate about providing exceptional care and support to patients with breast cancer, we invite you to apply.
To communicate and work in partnership with all members of the MDTs to ensure a seamless pathway of care for patients from diagnosis through treatment and follow up care.
To be an autonomous practitioner and manage own caseload and work with colleagues to provide the highest possible standards of care for patients diagnosed with Breast cancer.
To support and co-ordinate patient’s / family / carer from diagnosis onwards through all stages of their disease and treatment modalities and utilise excellent communication skills to complete appropriate onward referrals for your cohort of patients.
To act as point of contact and offer to be the Breast keyworker’ for patients and their families and carer.
Ensure the Macmillan Holistic Needs Assessments and Care Plans are completed for all patients at key points of their cancer treatment pathway. You will be required to liaise with and ensure referral and appropriate signposting onto allied health professionals and services as required.
Please see the attached Job Description for a full list of main responsibilities.
Whittington Health serves a richly diverse population and works hard to ensure that all our services are fair and equally accessible to everyone. Nowhere is this more obvious than in the way we look after our staff. We aim to employ a workforce which is as representative as possible of this population, so we are open to the value of differences in age, disability, gender, marital status, pregnancy and maternity, race, sexual orientation, and religion or belief. The Trust believes that as a public sector organisation we have an obligation to have recruitment, training, promotion and other formal employment policies and procedures that are sensitive to these differences. We think that by doing so, we are better able to treat our patients as well as being a better place to work.
To act as point of contact and offer to be the Breast keyworker’ for patients and their families and carer.
Ensure the Macmillan Holistic Needs Assessments and Care Plans are completed for all patients at key points of their cancer treatment pathway. You will be required to liaise with and ensure referral and appropriate signposting onto allied health professionals and services as required.
To provide and offer a wide range of information and support to patients their family and/or carers at all stages of their cancer journey this includes access and utilisation of Information, Prescriptions, and signposting to the Whittington Health Macmillan Information space.
To competently act as the patients, advocate and assist patients in understanding their disease and treatments available to them, to enable them to make informed choices about their care. Assist in the co-ordination of patient treatment pathways between the various departments in both primary and secondary care to facilitate continuity of care.
To attend the relevant Breast outpatient clinics. These include: One stop clinic and those where patients are given a cancer diagnosis.
To be a core member of the Breast MDT and attend the palliative care and site-specific MDT’s where Breast patients are being discussed and as deemed appropriate.

To establish links and develop networking opportunities with Breast CNSs at other Trusts.

• To support and assess all Breast cancer in-patients and liaise with ward staff and Consultants as deemed appropriate and provide a seamless approach to communication to enhance the patient’s pathway and experience.
• To ensure that patients are referred onto other health care professionals and services to ensure a seamless, high-quality pathway of care for them, their families and carers.
• To establish and maintain close working relationships with the Hospital and relevant Community Macmillan Palliative care teams.
• To be responsible in ensuring accurate and comprehensive documentation in all patients’ notes which include the trusts EPR and Somerset Cancer database system.
• To work as part of the MDT’s core member and actively participate in the National Cancer Peer review process.
• To regularly attend the Cancer Clinical Nurse Specialist Forum and participate in the agreed projects/work streams as agreed by the group.
• To provide CNS cover for cancer/Breast CNS colleagues during leave and absence.
• To be competent in managing your own timetable and caseload. This includes managing any nurse-led clinics with minimal supervision from the Breast consultants. To ensure that robust Breast care patient tracking is completed in partnership with the MDT Coordinator.
• To possess exemplary time management skills.

Please see the attached Job Description for a full list of main responsibilities

Please refer the Job description for details