School nurse

at  Medway Community Healthcare CIC

Are you a hardworking, dedicated NMC registered school nurse with passion and drive?
Are you newly qualified SCPHN, looking to show your innovation and determination?
Would you like the chance to reshape and reinvigorate services to meet the needs of all families living in Medway?
Are you passionate about the care you give to children and young people?
If you answered yes, we’ve got the perfect role for you!
We are a multi skilled team comprising of school nurses, school staff nurses, emotional well being practitioners, learning disability nurses and support staff. Together we support the health and wellbeing of children in Medway; working closely with our children’s therapy and health visiting colleagues as well as external agencies to provide children the best opportunity to learn and thrive.
This role will require you to initiate and undertake agreed health assessments for children and families, including vulnerable children of various ages.
Facilitating and promoting links between the children’s services and other agencies to promote health and wellbeing; ensuring the voice of the child is heard. You will need to encourage and motivate children, young people and their families to engage in public health messages and change behaviour.
You will act as a link school nurse for an identified number of schools and have the knowledge of the key drivers and other relevant legislation/guidance for school nursing services; including legislation and guidance in the safeguarding of children and adults.
So what else?
This is your chance to join a progressive and innovative service in a social enterprise that is patient and staff focused - you’ll even have the opportunity to become an MCH shareholder.
We encourage staff to get involved in exploring new ways of working and service development.
We’ll provide well established, in-service training, one to one supervision, and appraisals with regular support.
You’ll be able to develop your skills in a friendly and supportive team.
So what are you waiting for? We can’t wait to hear from you, and look forward to receiving your application.
The small print
We will offer you the choice of two pension schemes; the NHS Pension scheme and the scottish widows group pension scheme.
MCH encourages all staff to be double COVID vaccinated to protect themselves, their colleagues, their family and their patients
Would you like to work flexibly? In the NHS, we are reminded every day of how important work life balance is. As a flexible working friendly organisation, we want to be sure that you can work in a way that is best for us, for our patients and for you. Speak to us about how we might be able to accommodate a flexible working arrangement
At this time, MCH cannot fund or support any further nurses who require the OSCE training. Please do not apply if you require this training.
Communication and relationship skills
Initiate and undertake agreed health assessments on children and families, including vulnerable children of various ages
Facilitate and promote links between the children’s services and other agencies to promote health and wellbeing; ensuring the voice of the child is heard
Encourage and motivate children, young people and their families to engage in public health messages and change behaviours
Communicate highly complex difficult messages to parents or schools.
Receive, translate and communicate highly complex information in a suitable format to the target audience, overcoming barriers to understanding
Act as a link school nurse for an identified number of schools
Knowledge, training and experience
A registered nurse with the specialist community public health nursing qualification in school nursing
Experience of working in a range of community settings including family homes, clinics and schools
Mentorship qualification and experience of supporting pre and post qualification students
Knowledge of the key drivers and other relevant legislation/guidance for school nursing services; including legislation and guidance in the safeguarding of children and adults
Experience of employing evidence based practice and multi-disciplinary team working
Experience of delivering presentations to children, young people and families as well as other professionals eg teaching staff
Analytical and judgement skills
Make clinical decisions involving a range of facts or situations including risk assessments; clinical need and disclosures
Assess and identify the needs of individual children referred to the service, plan care and make appropriate referrals/signpost
Complete holistic assessments considering the Think Family approach
Assist in local audits, risk management and the review and development of local policies and guidelines
Be actively involved in the collection and analysis of information for school health profiling
Assess and evaluate the performance of team members, providing appropriate feedback, and participate in the appraisal process
Provide targeted health interventions to children and young people with identified health needs
Exercise leadership, judgment, and management to ensure excellent clinical practice, maintaining high standards of care
Planning and organisational skills
Manage and organise a defined caseload independently, addressing the health needs of children according to evidence based practice
Provide targeted health interventions to children and young people with identified health needs
Ensure the most effective use of human and physical resources within the team by appropriate delegation of work and use/application of resources.
Contribute to meeting the learning and development needs of pre and post registration student nurses and new members of staff, which provides a positive culture to enhance learning and service improvement.
Maintain accurate and contemporaneous health records in accordance with NMC and MCH standards
To understand and work towards ensuring that services are delivered in accordance with the service specification
Write and submit reports in a timely manner
Facilitate regular meetings with link schools
Manage own workload, reporting issues to the Lead School Nurse or Clinical Lead for PHN Schools, when difficulties arise, offering solutions where possible
Physical skills
Ability to travel to a range of community settings including home, clinic and schools in Medway and occasionally outside of Medway.
Ability to carry equipment such as scales and Leicester measures
Ability to use computer keyboards including laptops
Responsibility for patient / client care
Manage and organise a caseload, addressing the health needs of children according to evidence based practice and service provision
Provide targeted health interventions to children and young people with identified need following holistic assessment
Act as a link school nurse for an identified number of schools
Contribute to the identification/assessment and support of vulnerable children, including those within the Safeguarding arena and represent the service at key partnership meetings inclusive of safeguarding meeting
Participate in nurse-led clinics
Facilitate/deliver training sessions where identified health needs require training for non-medical school staff
Participate in targeted health promoting activities
Advise on public health issues and infection control within the school community
Identify vulnerability that may impact on the child or young person’s health, education, school attendance
Help children and young people to develop a knowledge of self-care, autonomy and decision making, including how to access health services
Promote the safeguarding of children through multi-disciplinary team working and work within the Medway Safeguarding Children’s Partnership policies/procedures and guidance for the protection of children. Be aware of emerging issues such as sexual exploitation, gang violence and extremism
Maintain caseload responsibility for children with a safeguarding plan and delegate appropriately to other members of the school nurse team
Ensure that confidentiality and the rights of consent relating to young people are followed
Report relevant clinical information/clinical issues to the Professional Lead and Clinical Team Leader
Observe and maintain strict confidentiality with regards to any patient/family/staff/records and information in line with information governance
Responsibility for policy and service development implementation
Participate in clinical supervision as per organisation policy
Actively participate in and support the development of evidence based practice and clinical audit in collaboration with lead professionals and managers
To participate in service or practice initiatives to improve client care standards and outcomes
Contributing to the development of proposals, by participating in working groups or providing feedback as required
Responsibilities for financial and physical resources
The School Nurse post does not carry any financial responsibility in relation to budget control
Responsibilities for human resources (HR)
Responsible for day-to-day supervision and line management of skill mix staff members within the team
Development of skill mix staff
Plan and co-ordinate team cover during sickness, annual leave and absence to meet the needs of the service
Assist in the recruitment and induction of new staff members.  Provide mentorship for pre-registration students
Provide clinical supervision, mentorship and community experience to pre- and postregistration nursing/ midwifery and school nurse students.
Maintaining own professional development and requirement to take part in appraisal
Responsibilities for information resources
Complete electronic records, in accordance with local and national guidance, ensuring that records are contemporaneous and accurate
Maintain accurate and comprehensive nursing administrative and statistical records, regularly providing management with returns and statistics as requested
Responsibilities for research and development (R&D)
Undertake appropriate surveys and audit to influence local and national policies ensuring researched-based practice
Gather research evidence required to ensure advances in nursing and high quality team performance
Assist in the delivery of an agreed audit and development programme that links into the health care governance framework
Freedom to act
Guided by established policies and guidelines
Professionally and legally responsible and accountable for all aspects of own work
Works independently as an autonomous practitione

Please refer the Job description for details