Colorectal Nurse Specialist

Job responsibilities

Key Result Areas:

Expertise & Excellence in Clinical Practice

Contribute to the delivery of evidence-based personalised and compassionate care which places quality at the heart of specialist practice. Care will responsive to individual needs and reflect current local protocols and national guidelines.

Act as an accessible professional for the multi-disciplinary team (MDT) supporting the management of a clinical caseload for at least 80% of the role. This will necessitate a degree of autonomy and advocacy to ensure the delivery of appropriate care.

Contribute to the management of a caseload of patients within speciality and prioritise workload to meet patient and service need.

Use knowledge of the speciality and treatment to support the development of personalised care pathways for individuals and assist with holistic needs assessment, planning and evaluation of care and all care interventions.

Act as a patient advocate to facilitate the process of shared decision making in respect to health, choice of treatment and care. Use interpersonal and communication skills where there may be significant barriers in order to build confidence. Ensure that patients individual needs are expressed and valued and individual care plans are understood.

Advise on disease and symptom management for patients within the speciality in both inpatient and outpatient settings. Evaluate response to interventions and cascade to relevant colleagues.

Support patients to self-manage their condition where deemed appropriate. Provide education for those who will need guided support to self-manage and those who will need ongoing face to face support.

Assist in the development and delivery of nurse led or parallel clinics in line with National guidance and local service need.

Act as a resource providing specialist advice and support across service boundaries to ensure optimum liaison and co-ordination of care.

Undertake clinical competencies relevant to this specialist service to demonstrate expertise in extended nursing roles. Assess and assist in managing individual psychological reactions to diagnosis, treatment and associated side effects

Speciality Specific

After a period of training, conduct nurse led clinics on a regular caseload basis, adhering to local and national guidelines.

Promote patient and carers involvement in care planning, delivery and evaluations. Implement a communication system to keep patients and their relatives/families informed of treatment and progress. Undertake audits at regular intervals to maintain standards of record keeping.

Act as clinical leader and role model, sharing expertise with colleagues to ensure safety and confidentiality of patient information

Management & Leadership

Act as a role model demonstrating high standards of holistic care and provide clinical leadership to others across the organisation.

Provide support to ensure public and patient involvement is embedded within the sphere of practice.

Assist in setting measurable outcomes for the service and continuous evaluation of practice supporting changes where necessary.

Contribute to the clinical governance agenda.

Participate in operational and strategic planning for the development and delivery of the specialist service. Support service improvement activities.

Attend Trust senior nurse meetings and contribute to the agenda and strategic nursing vision.

Represent the Trust by contributing to and participating in meetings locally, regional and nationally relating to the speciality.

Contribute to an annual service review, gathering information to support the annual report.

Communication

Take personal responsibility for ensuring effective communication between all service providers.

Act as a role model for excellent communication skills. Demonstrate empathetic interpersonal and communication skills in supporting, informing and advising patients and carers through diagnosis, treatment, disease progression, prognosis and supportive and palliative care where applicable. This will involve occasionally imparting significant news or supporting patients and carers during and following such consultations.

Effectively and sensitively communicate complex and sensitive information to emotionally distressed patients and family/carers at key points along the care pathway on a frequent basis.

As a core member of the MDT provide professional advice to colleagues

Refer to other health professionals and outside agencies to ensure optimum care and ongoing support for individual patients/carers, and to ensure the seamless transition from primary to secondary care appropriate to patients individual needs and circumstance.

Maintain links with local and national organisations, which support the care of patients within this speciality.

Education

Identify and use educational strategies to deliver information to patients and carers.

Participate in the development of patient focused education including training to support self-management and health promotion activities.

Assist in the development of other professionals by contributing to Trust wide specialist education and training.

Support the delivery of formal and informal teaching initiatives as part of the Trusts education strategy as agreed with the appropriate senior nurse to ensure practice development, staff empowerment and improved care for patients.

Act as a mentor/clinical supervisor as appropriate.

Take personal responsibility for life-long learning and personal development through clinical supervision and appraisal. Actively engages with learning and development opportunities needed to work as an advancing practitioner and take appropriate action to ensure these needs are met.

Contribute to promoting educational links with local providers of higher education and deliver lectures on a range of courses.

Quality, Audit, Innovation and Research

Assist in the development of written patient information and use existing appropriate resources to inform users, according to individually assessed need.

Work within the NMC code of professional conduct.

Contribute to the development of policies and clinical guidelines to support the specialist service.

Collaborate with other MDT members to develop and update multi-professional Trust operational policies and guidelines.

Maintain patient records and ensure an effective documentation system to reflect the activity and delivery of specialist nursing care.

Promote the service were applicable.

Use creative reasoning, experience and vision to support advancement of care.

Develop new skills in response to emerging knowledge and techniques.

Supports management of change as required.

Maintain membership and attendance at national and local forums to network and debate issues to inform the specialist nursing role and service delivery where applicable.

Assist with the collation of data to provide evidence of productivity, outcomes and quality through audit and research.

Contribute to the identification of patients eligible for trial entry. Provide support to patients considering entry to clinical trials in relation to informed consent and advocacy.

Participate in clinical research relevant to practice area.

Assist in the development of links and system to seek the views of patient and carers to ensure service development is in line with user need.

Additional Responsibilities

Colorectal

To be an active participant with the ABC (Affected by Bowel Cancer) support group. Attending meetings, liaison with members and assist with organising speakers for events.

To provide clinical assessment, implement treatment as prescribed, care and support of patients at all stages of their pathway, including requesting tests and investigations and imparting the results to patients, consultants and GPs.

To co-ordinate the patients treatment pathway, providing information, advice and support to the patient, family and carers.

Formulate and implement policies, procedures and protocols for the management of colorectal patients.

Proactively initiate and facilitate change and improvement in colorectal cancer services and operational systems to improve the quality of care and meet local and national guidelines.

Ensure that the departments clinical procedures and protocols are understood and adhered to by all staff. These should represent best possible practice and reflect Trust and National strategy for the management of colorectal cancer patients.

Contribute to the planning, organisation and evaluation of work, ensuring adequate induction of new staff including effective preceptorship for new staff.

Demonstrate advanced practice skills in the holistic assessment, planning, implementation and evaluation of care for the cohort of patients who have been referred with NSS, which may result in a cancer diagnosis.

Developing increased levels of autonomy and advocacy, using analytical and judgemental skills in undertaking differential diagnoses to ensure the delivery of appropriate care. Working in a fast paced and at times unpredictable environment. Transferring patients for necessary investigations. Working within own level of competence

Manage Finance

Have an awareness of budget to ensure all resources are used in a cost effective manner, identifying and assisting in the implication of cost improvement initiatives.

Assist the Lead Nurse to optimise nursing resources by an even distribution of staff annual leave and matching skill mix to workload.

Identify, reports and acts upon and evaluates discrepancies between skill mix and workload within the clinical area.

Qualifications

Essential

• Registered General Nurse, NMC registered
• First level degree in related subject
• Evidence of continued professional development
• Mentors & Assessors
• Post basic qualification in speciality and/or recognised teaching qualification (ENB 998, C&G 730 or equivalent)
• Advanced Communication skills training or willingness to work towards

Desirable

• Level 2 Counselling training

Experience

Essential

• Relevant and up to date post registration experience within the speciality
• Experience of student supervision and teaching
• Proven leadership skills
• Experience of delivering patient advocacy
• Experience and understanding of audit and evidence-based care

Desirable

• Experience of undertaking research
• Evidence of specialist nursing role

Skills

Essential

• Clinical, managerial and leadership skills in speciality
• Proven listening and counselling skills
• Up to date knowledge of current clinical and professional issues
• Excellent verbal, written, interpersonal and communication skills
• Managing a caseload
• Good decision-making abilities
• Understanding of change management process
• Demonstrate an awareness of the National agenda for speciality
• Knowledge of quality standards and relevant
• NICE guidelines, NSF CQUINs etc
• Team player
• Proficient IT skills
• Presentation skills
• Ability to write reports and maintain accurate records

Desirable

• Undertaken clinical and nursing research

Personal Qualities

Essential

• Creative thinker
• Diplomatic

Other Job requirements

Essential

• Flexible and positive approach to work
• Demonstrates commitment to self-development and the development of others
• Able to work flexible shifts and be able to change duties at short notice
• Computer literacy
• Car driver - able to travel between sites
• Able to attend network-wide meetings

Disclosure and Barring Service Check

This post is subject to the Rehabilitation of Offenders Act (Exceptions Order) 1975 and as such it will be necessary for a submission for Disclosure to be made to the Disclosure and Barring Service (formerly known as CRB) to check for any previous criminal convictions.

Certificate of Sponsorship

Applications from job seekers who require current Skilled worker sponsorship to work in the UK are welcome and will be considered alongside all other applications. For further information visit the UK Visas and Immigration website (Opens in a new tab).

From 6 April 2017, skilled worker applicants, applying for entry clearance into the UK, have had to present a criminal record certificate from each country they have resided continuously or cumulatively for 12 months or more in the past 10 years. Adult dependants (over 18 years old) are also subject to this requirement. Guidance can be found here Criminal records checks for overseas applicants (Opens in a new tab).

UK Registration

Applicants must have current UK professional registration. For further information please see NHS Careers website (opens in a new window).