Highly Specialist Dietitian - Home Enteral Feeding

at  Mersey Care NHS Foundation Trust

We are seeking an innovative individual who is driven to establish, shape and grow an outstanding Community Dietetics Specialist service for our diverse population. This is an exciting time for Dietetics and Allied Health Professionals, with a focus on quality, safety and support in future workforce and service development.
You will work closely with other Team Lead and Specialist Dietitians within the Community Dietetics Team for Knowsley and St Helens and develop strong links with Dietetic colleagues and AHPs across Merseycare in Liverpoo l , South Sefton and Southport and Formby. You will work in a friendly, proactive, and dynamic team with support from peers and colleagues.
Our Community Dietetic service covers both adults and Paediatrics patients across Knowsley and St Helens. You will have regular weekly peer support and will link in with the Professional Lead for Dietetics driving forward quality and safety in all aspects of Dietetic practice with a focus on Home Enteral Feeding. You will work closely with operational and management teams regarding team performance.
The successful post holder will demonstrate advanced clinical knowledge and skills in adult community dietetics and home enteral feeding and a proven track record of leading for quality improvement within Dietetic teams. You will have the opportunity to develop your leadership and clinical experience in this role, with frequent learning and reflective practice opportunities.
The Nutrition and Dietetics Department in Knowsley and St Helens is a team of 9 Dietitians, 1 Assistant Practitioners and 4 Dietetic Assistants with admin hub support. We have regular departmental meetings, safety huddles, clinical supervision sessions and education meetings. Continuing professional development is promoted and supported.
You will manage a complex clinical case load of patients mostly requiring home enteral feeding and oral nutrition support through clinics and community visits. The service has developed a unique collaboration with Aintree and Clatterbridge integrated Head and Neck Service delivering joint Dietetic and Speech Therapy Head and Neck clinics in the community. Knowledge of Paediatric home enteral feeding is desirable but not essential. You will have skills in prioritisation and time management, with the ability to work autonomously and flexibly across Knowsley and St Helens. You will help with triaging referrals and caseload allocation, incident reporting and analysis, performance monitoring and involvement in key projects within the team.
You will be involved in the training and supervision of staff and Dietetic students. We work closely with our Practice Education Facilitators and Universities and there is a focus on developing AHP educators and supporting applications for further learning opportunities to develop these roles.
Mersey Care is one of the largest trusts providing physical health and mental health services in the North West, serving more than 1.4 million people across our region and are also commissioned for services that cover the North West, North Wales and the Midlands.
We offer specialist inpatient and community services that support physical and mental health and specialist inpatient mental health, learning disability, addiction and brain injury services. Mersey Care is one of only three trusts in the UK that offer high secure mental health facilities.
At the heart of all we do is our commitment to ‘perfect care’ – care that is safe, effective, positively experienced, timely, equitable and efficient. We support our staff to do the best job they can and work alongside service users, their families, and carers to design and develop future services together. We’re currently delivering a programme of organisational and service transformation to significantly improve the quality of the services we provide and safely reduce cost as we do so.
Flexible working requests will be considered for all roles.
Provide clinical leadership and management to the clinical team. Be responsible for the delivery of the service within the area.
Work in partnership with other services/stakeholders etc., to enable patients/clients to be treated in the appropriate setting.
Ensure that the team provides a high quality service to its clients by providing caseload and clinical supervision.
Contribute to working groups across Mersey Care lead by the AHP professional lead to develop the home enteral feeding service.
Attend quarterly home enteral feeding contract meetings to review KPIs and service delivery of home enteral feeding contract.
Have line management responsibility for the team ensuring appropriate delegation and delivery of patients/client care.
Ensure that teams work proactively in order to deliver anticipatory and maintenance care, providing a responsive service to patients/clients with both planned and unplanned care needs.
Maintain clinical credibility by providing clinical care and supporting members of the team within the clinical environment.
Participate in the development of caseload management across the local health economy. Provide leadership and mentoring to those staff developing into a caseload management role.
Acts as an advocate and champion for patients/clients in a variety of forums and professional groups and challenge attitudes and behaviour.
Implement plans for the team including rotas and schedules/working patterns to ensure business continuity.
Practice autonomously and demonstrate evidence based clinical decision making.
Provide clinical expertise and knowledge to the team when managing complex and highly complex situations.
Manage a caseload of complex oral nutrition support and home enteral feeding patients
Assess patient/client conditions and consider a range of options when delivering complex and highly complex clinical care.
Work in collaboration with other stakeholders to deliver services to patients/clients.
Following holistic assessment of health needs, develop individualised care plans to fulfil those needs, with the involvement of patients/clients and carers.
Implement and evaluate care delivery for patients/clients with identified needs.
Ensure that all clinical activity provided by the team directly reflects the core objectives of health promotion, supported self-care, disease specific management, management of long term conditions and end of life/palliative care.
Set objectives by which performance will be monitored.
Work with the service lead to deliver local based services, by participating in meetings and communicating the outcomes to staff.
Provide reports to the service lead on staff and patient activity as requested. Work in collaboration with others to support practice development and service modernisation. Contribute to the development of role and service redesign.
Actively participate in policy and service development authoring protocols as required.
Provide induction to the local working environment, and policies for new team members and students.
Be an authorised signatory, ensuring probity in the authorisation of timecards and mileage claims. Monitor budgets reporting over/under spending to the budget holder. Undertake personal development plans (PDP) and ensure all team members.
Contribute to the development of policy and services to reflect local needs have up to date PDPs, monitor Knowledge and Skills Framework (KSF) and reviews. Ensure that all staff attend mandatory training.
Ensure that administration and clerical duties are appropriately delegated to clerical support officers.
Provide data that supports the monitoring of team contract and objectives.
Participate in audits and research, as required.
Participate in individual and group supervision.
Implement mentorship and clinical supervision with the team.
Ensure that record keeping within the team is consistent with professional standards.
Initiate training and development of team members. Monitor and maintain standards of patient care delivery. Including maintaining and monitoring of clinical competency and standards of record keeping
In conjunction with the service lead, ensure systems are in place for the ongoing review and assessment of care provision and delivery.
Work within guidelines to identify and manage risk, reporting identified risks to the service lead.
Report any incidents as per Trust policies and support or undertake any investigations as delegated by the service lead.
Monitor and ensure that the quality of the patient care delivered by the team is evidenced based and supported by best practice, through the use of audit, caseload and clinical supervision.
Participate in patient satisfaction reporting to improve patient care. Maintain registration in line with professional bodies.
Provide support to team members holding responsibility for mentoring students.
Identify skills deficits within the team identify methods of addressing these to support service delivery, improvement, and development.
The post holder shall, as necessary, provide cover for and undertake duties of absent colleagues.
The post holder shall follow all the policies and procedures of the organisation

Please refer the Job description for details