Job summary
- To be responsible for the day-to-day planning, management, development, monitoring and provision of the dietetic service within Camden Community & St Pancras Rehabilitation Unit (SPRU).
- To manage the dietetic & nutrition support team, lead recruitment and retention, monitor absence and deal with performance issues.
- To provide leadership, support, clinical supervision and develop the members of the Dietetic team (Specialist Dietitians and support workers) in the area of nutrition support services.
- To produce, disseminate and evaluate multi-disciplinary Trust-wide policies, strategies, guidelines, standards and protocols in the area of Nutrition support using expert knowledge, extensive clinical experience and professional judgment.
- To lead audit and research around nutritional support in the community setting
- To hold a complex clinical caseload in the community
- To lead in the area of dietetic prescribing and ensure the dietitians are providing feeds appropriately
- To lead in the development and provision of specialist training packages; on screening and nutritional support to Trust and other staff, student dietitians, community groups, and health professionals including district nurses, nursing home staff and care workers
- Network with other lead Dietitians within North Central London (NCL) and CNWL to ensure good governance, clinical standards and shared learning.
- To be an exemplary role model to staff.
Main duties of the job
- To be responsible for the day-to-day planning, management, development, monitoring and provision of the dietetic service within Camden Community & St Pancras Rehabilitation Unit (SPRU).
- To manage the dietetic & nutrition support team, lead recruitment and retention, monitor absence and deal with performance issues.
- To provide leadership, support, clinical supervision and develop the members of the Dietetic team (Specialist Dietitians and support workers) in the area of nutrition support services.
- To produce, disseminate and evaluate multi-disciplinary Trust-wide policies, strategies, guidelines, standards and protocols in the area of Nutrition support using expert knowledge, extensive clinical experience and professional judgment.
- To lead audit and research around nutritional support in the community setting
- To hold a complex clinical caseload in the community
- To lead in the area of dietetic prescribing and ensure the dietitians are providing feeds appropriately
- To lead in the development and provision of specialist training packages; on screening and nutritional support to Trust and other staff, student dietitians, community groups, and health professionals including district nurses, nursing home staff and care workers
- Network with other lead Dietitians within North Central London (NCL) and CNWL to ensure good governance, clinical standards and shared learning.
- To be an exemplary role model to staff.
About us
Central and North West London (CNWL) Trust has almost 7,000 staff providing integrated healthcare to a third of London's population, Milton Keynes and areas beyond.
Long Term Conditions Service (LTC) includes the following services:- Heart Failure, COPD & Home O2 Service, Neuro & Stroke Service, Podiatry Service, Diabetes Service and Dietetic Service.
Long Term Conditions services provide an intermediate care service providing advanced short-term nursing care, occupational therapy, physiotherapy and social care to people with immediate health or functional needs.
The service completes face to face, clinical and care visits to the community of Camden to individuals aged 18 and over, providing hospital prevention, facilitating hospital discharges and physical rehabilitation at home.
The successful applicant may have contact with patients or service users. As an NHS Trust we strongly encourage and support vaccination as this remains the best way to protect yourself, your family, your colleagues and of course patients and service users when working on our healthcare settings.
Job description
Job responsibilities
- Clinical
- To be professionally, legally accountable, and responsible for all aspects of your work.
- To work autonomously to provide expert dietary advice to patients, carers, nurses, clinicians, dietitians and other health professionals/agencies within and across the Trust regarding nutritional support and the appropriate use of nutritional products.
- To assess and diagnose nutritional problems including malnourishment, taking anthropometrical measurements, interpreting blood biochemistry results, analysing dietary intake, and calculating nutritional requirements.
- To develop, deliver and review complex treatment plans.
- To be responsible for ensuring appropriate authorisation/prescribing of nutritional sip feeds and enteral feeds for patients and recommend products to GPs and medical staff.
- To communicate complex scientific and sensitive medical information in an understandable form to patients from a wide range of backgrounds, carers and families, tailored to their needs, gain consent, ensure understanding of the condition, treatment options, risks, acceptance and compliance with dietary treatment, which may include unwelcome or difficult to accept information e.g. lifetime adherence to artificial diet or limitations of treatment in terminal illness.
- To apply highly developed communication, negotiation and counselling skills to facilitate behavioural changes, investigating and accommodating emotional, physical, social and psychological barriers as well as strong influences on change e.g. depression, dementia, language difficulties, resistant attitudes, aggression, behavioural problems, mental illness, and loss of speech after stroke or oral surgery. To effectively use interpreters, sign language, Information Technology or other means of communication appropriate to the client's requirements.
- To be an expert source of information and advice to patients/carers and nursing staff on the use of artificial feeding, care of feeding equipment, stoma site, complications and problem-solving. To discuss and challenge complex ethical issues or decisions with service users and health professionals e.g. whether to continue feeding or not.
- To promote multi-disciplinary/multi-agency collaborative working to ensure continuity of care. Attend multi-disciplinary team meetings and case conferences. To provide timely and informative patient progress reports/discharge summaries to secondary, primary care and local authority/social services.
- To refer to other health professionals/social services when appropriate.
- To network and work in partnership with established clinical networks e.g. nutritional support, diabetes, paediatric specialist groups and mental health dietitians. To work with other disciplines/agencies e.g. public health department, prescribing leads, nurse leads, falls service and Palliative Care service to support prevention as well as treatment.
- To keep contemporaneous, accurate and comprehensive notes and records for each patient using electronic patient systems (SystmOne)
- To support, advise and provide clinical supervision to your team members regarding complex patients
- Professional
- To review, critique, develop and advise on up-to-date, accurate nutrition education materials for use by the dietetic team, other health professionals and the general public. To use critical appraisal skills and pilot resources with user
- To work as a team member and attend and contribute to regular departmental meetings, clinical updates and practice supervision.
- To work under minimal supervision, as a lone worker in the community, visit patients homes, hospitals, community and primary care sites, and nursing and residential homes.
- To be responsible for managing time effectively, planning, prioritising, assessing risk and organising your own workload, and balancing professional demands, pressures and deadlines.
- To lead in the area of dietetic prescribing development for Camden Long Term Conditions.
- To respond accurately to nutritional enquiries from the Media and other non-NHS organisations.
- Teaching/Nutrition Education
- To lead in identifying, assessing, planning and coordinating the delivery of nutritional support training/education (screening, food fortification, dietary modification and appropriate use of supplements) to professionals working in Camden, e.g. nurses, medical staff, Residential and nursing homes, catering staff, allied health professionals, pharmacists, Social Services.
- To induct new members of the nutrition support team and dietetic team.
- To plan, assess and deliver student training to student dietitians and to other students e.g. nursing, AHP and medical.
- To plan, deliver and evaluate health promotion sessions to prevent malnutrition in vulnerable community groups e.g. Help the Aged. To engage in service user feedback in the community to ensure service users needs are focused upon.
- To provide peer supervision, training and development for your team members and dietetic staff in nutritional support
- Management
- To develop, implement and oversee compliance with the local standard operational procedure (SOP) within the Department.
- To manage the nutritional support service, develop, establish and monitor systems of patient review including setting up clinics in various locations across the borough, domiciliary visits and telephone reviews. To allocate clinics to nutritional specialists and ensure the service runs efficiently.
- To recruit, select and retain your team members including specialist dietitians, nutritional, support workers and administrative staff.
- To provide clinical leadership, supervise, train and develop nutritional support specialist dietitians and nutrition assistants in the area of nutritional support. Ensure the team has annual appraisal, job plans and personal development plans.
- To provide support to the wider CNWL dietetic teams, as appropriate and agreed with the Head of LTC. To ensure role development and competency guidance and assessment are in place for lower banded roles to include support workers.
- To work in conjunction with the Camden Service leads to develop the strategic direction for the service in line with Trust objectives, commissioning intentions and national modernisation initiatives.
- To be accountable for the effective use of oral nutritional supplements in Camden, monitoring spend and ensuring cost-effective prescribing practices of the whole team across the rehab unit and community.
- Where required, to order equipment and feed for patients and authorise invoices for the nutrition support service.
- To contribute to the development of programmes for cost improvement, income generation and proposals for monitoring the effective use of resources.
- To be responsible for the leadership, development, clinical performance and day-to-day operational management of members of the team.
- To monitor absence, and sickness monitoring and deal with performance issues for the Team members.
- To work with other dietetic leads including the Head of Profession (HOP) within CNWL to deliver the Trust AHP strategy.
- Clinical Governance
- To lead in the development of audit and research activity within the nutrition support service. To communicate and publish the results, make recommendations for changing clinical practice and ensure changes are implemented and reviewed. To measure and evaluate service activities to ensure evidence-based practice and reflective learning.
- To lead dietetics with other band 8 dietetic posts, NCL and trust-wide or across Trust multidisciplinary working group meetings around nutritional support.
- To produce and establish updated, evidence-based packages of care, protocols/policies/guidelines/standards/resource materials for the management of nutritional support.
- To ensure multi-disciplinary groups and carers/patients are consulted. To be a member of working parties e.g. Nutritional Support Lead Dietitians across NCL and nationally to share and instigate best practices. To produce statistical information as determined by the Departmental and Trust objectives and key performance indicators.
- To be responsible for equipment in your care e.g. scales, tape measures, Callipers, laptops, enteral feeding equipment and feed samples, and maintain an asset register.
- To be responsible for allocating operational and clinical governance tasks to the team and supervising delegated tasks.
- To contribute (through analysing, reviewing and commenting) to the development and implementation of evidence-based departmental nutrition and dietetic clinical and non-clinical standards, policies, procedures and guidelines.
- To contribute to the implementation of national and local agreed strategies, initiatives and NICE guidance e.g. National Service Frameworks, Nutrition support Policies and guidelines.
- To deal with complaints, manage risk investigate incidents and ensure patient satisfaction with the service is high.
- To and act in accordance with the Code of Professional Conduct of Health Care Professionals Council, Dietetic standards and Trust policies and procedures.
- To develop and maintain highly specialist knowledge and skills required to practice in the area of nutritional support and in managing staff.
Job description
Job responsibilities
- Clinical
- To be professionally, legally accountable, and responsible for all aspects of your work.
- To work autonomously to provide expert dietary advice to patients, carers, nurses, clinicians, dietitians and other health professionals/agencies within and across the Trust regarding nutritional support and the appropriate use of nutritional products.
- To assess and diagnose nutritional problems including malnourishment, taking anthropometrical measurements, interpreting blood biochemistry results, analysing dietary intake, and calculating nutritional requirements.
- To develop, deliver and review complex treatment plans.
- To be responsible for ensuring appropriate authorisation/prescribing of nutritional sip feeds and enteral feeds for patients and recommend products to GPs and medical staff.
- To communicate complex scientific and sensitive medical information in an understandable form to patients from a wide range of backgrounds, carers and families, tailored to their needs, gain consent, ensure understanding of the condition, treatment options, risks, acceptance and compliance with dietary treatment, which may include unwelcome or difficult to accept information e.g. lifetime adherence to artificial diet or limitations of treatment in terminal illness.
- To apply highly developed communication, negotiation and counselling skills to facilitate behavioural changes, investigating and accommodating emotional, physical, social and psychological barriers as well as strong influences on change e.g. depression, dementia, language difficulties, resistant attitudes, aggression, behavioural problems, mental illness, and loss of speech after stroke or oral surgery. To effectively use interpreters, sign language, Information Technology or other means of communication appropriate to the client's requirements.
- To be an expert source of information and advice to patients/carers and nursing staff on the use of artificial feeding, care of feeding equipment, stoma site, complications and problem-solving. To discuss and challenge complex ethical issues or decisions with service users and health professionals e.g. whether to continue feeding or not.
- To promote multi-disciplinary/multi-agency collaborative working to ensure continuity of care. Attend multi-disciplinary team meetings and case conferences. To provide timely and informative patient progress reports/discharge summaries to secondary, primary care and local authority/social services.
- To refer to other health professionals/social services when appropriate.
- To network and work in partnership with established clinical networks e.g. nutritional support, diabetes, paediatric specialist groups and mental health dietitians. To work with other disciplines/agencies e.g. public health department, prescribing leads, nurse leads, falls service and Palliative Care service to support prevention as well as treatment.
- To keep contemporaneous, accurate and comprehensive notes and records for each patient using electronic patient systems (SystmOne)
- To support, advise and provide clinical supervision to your team members regarding complex patients
- Professional
- To review, critique, develop and advise on up-to-date, accurate nutrition education materials for use by the dietetic team, other health professionals and the general public. To use critical appraisal skills and pilot resources with user
- To work as a team member and attend and contribute to regular departmental meetings, clinical updates and practice supervision.
- To work under minimal supervision, as a lone worker in the community, visit patients homes, hospitals, community and primary care sites, and nursing and residential homes.
- To be responsible for managing time effectively, planning, prioritising, assessing risk and organising your own workload, and balancing professional demands, pressures and deadlines.
- To lead in the area of dietetic prescribing development for Camden Long Term Conditions.
- To respond accurately to nutritional enquiries from the Media and other non-NHS organisations.
- Teaching/Nutrition Education
- To lead in identifying, assessing, planning and coordinating the delivery of nutritional support training/education (screening, food fortification, dietary modification and appropriate use of supplements) to professionals working in Camden, e.g. nurses, medical staff, Residential and nursing homes, catering staff, allied health professionals, pharmacists, Social Services.
- To induct new members of the nutrition support team and dietetic team.
- To plan, assess and deliver student training to student dietitians and to other students e.g. nursing, AHP and medical.
- To plan, deliver and evaluate health promotion sessions to prevent malnutrition in vulnerable community groups e.g. Help the Aged. To engage in service user feedback in the community to ensure service users needs are focused upon.
- To provide peer supervision, training and development for your team members and dietetic staff in nutritional support
- Management
- To develop, implement and oversee compliance with the local standard operational procedure (SOP) within the Department.
- To manage the nutritional support service, develop, establish and monitor systems of patient review including setting up clinics in various locations across the borough, domiciliary visits and telephone reviews. To allocate clinics to nutritional specialists and ensure the service runs efficiently.
- To recruit, select and retain your team members including specialist dietitians, nutritional, support workers and administrative staff.
- To provide clinical leadership, supervise, train and develop nutritional support specialist dietitians and nutrition assistants in the area of nutritional support. Ensure the team has annual appraisal, job plans and personal development plans.
- To provide support to the wider CNWL dietetic teams, as appropriate and agreed with the Head of LTC. To ensure role development and competency guidance and assessment are in place for lower banded roles to include support workers.
- To work in conjunction with the Camden Service leads to develop the strategic direction for the service in line with Trust objectives, commissioning intentions and national modernisation initiatives.
- To be accountable for the effective use of oral nutritional supplements in Camden, monitoring spend and ensuring cost-effective prescribing practices of the whole team across the rehab unit and community.
- Where required, to order equipment and feed for patients and authorise invoices for the nutrition support service.
- To contribute to the development of programmes for cost improvement, income generation and proposals for monitoring the effective use of resources.
- To be responsible for the leadership, development, clinical performance and day-to-day operational management of members of the team.
- To monitor absence, and sickness monitoring and deal with performance issues for the Team members.
- To work with other dietetic leads including the Head of Profession (HOP) within CNWL to deliver the Trust AHP strategy.
- Clinical Governance
- To lead in the development of audit and research activity within the nutrition support service. To communicate and publish the results, make recommendations for changing clinical practice and ensure changes are implemented and reviewed. To measure and evaluate service activities to ensure evidence-based practice and reflective learning.
- To lead dietetics with other band 8 dietetic posts, NCL and trust-wide or across Trust multidisciplinary working group meetings around nutritional support.
- To produce and establish updated, evidence-based packages of care, protocols/policies/guidelines/standards/resource materials for the management of nutritional support.
- To ensure multi-disciplinary groups and carers/patients are consulted. To be a member of working parties e.g. Nutritional Support Lead Dietitians across NCL and nationally to share and instigate best practices. To produce statistical information as determined by the Departmental and Trust objectives and key performance indicators.
- To be responsible for equipment in your care e.g. scales, tape measures, Callipers, laptops, enteral feeding equipment and feed samples, and maintain an asset register.
- To be responsible for allocating operational and clinical governance tasks to the team and supervising delegated tasks.
- To contribute (through analysing, reviewing and commenting) to the development and implementation of evidence-based departmental nutrition and dietetic clinical and non-clinical standards, policies, procedures and guidelines.
- To contribute to the implementation of national and local agreed strategies, initiatives and NICE guidance e.g. National Service Frameworks, Nutrition support Policies and guidelines.
- To deal with complaints, manage risk investigate incidents and ensure patient satisfaction with the service is high.
- To and act in accordance with the Code of Professional Conduct of Health Care Professionals Council, Dietetic standards and Trust policies and procedures.
- To develop and maintain highly specialist knowledge and skills required to practice in the area of nutritional support and in managing staff.
Person Specification
Degree/post graduate diploma Dietetics, Health Care Professions Council Registration
Essential
- Experience of line management, recruitment/retention, performance management and supervision *Experience of contributing to service development including developing and implementing policies, guidelines and standards.
Desirable
- Management/leadership qualification MSc in Nutrition/Advanced Dietetic Practice or equivalent
- Full clean UK driving licence
Knowledge & Experience
Essential
- Experience of line management, recruitment and retention, performance management and supervision
- Experience of contributing to service development including developing and implementing policies, guidelines and standards
- Experience of managing change, problem solving and knowledge of improving productivity
- Experience of dealing with conflict and complaints and emotional distress
- Extensive experience of training/teaching and development of others including healthcare professionals & Student dietitians
- Extensive clinical dietetic experience in nutrition support and enteral feeding
Person Specification
Degree/post graduate diploma Dietetics, Health Care Professions Council Registration
Essential
- Experience of line management, recruitment/retention, performance management and supervision *Experience of contributing to service development including developing and implementing policies, guidelines and standards.
Desirable
- Management/leadership qualification MSc in Nutrition/Advanced Dietetic Practice or equivalent
- Full clean UK driving licence
Knowledge & Experience
Essential
- Experience of line management, recruitment and retention, performance management and supervision
- Experience of contributing to service development including developing and implementing policies, guidelines and standards
- Experience of managing change, problem solving and knowledge of improving productivity
- Experience of dealing with conflict and complaints and emotional distress
- Extensive experience of training/teaching and development of others including healthcare professionals & Student dietitians
- Extensive clinical dietetic experience in nutrition support and enteral feeding
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.
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).
Additional information
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.
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).
