Mersey Care NHS Foundation Trust

Dietetic Assistant

The closing date is 22 March 2026

Job summary

Have you an interest in nutrition and health? We have a fantastic opportunity for a compassionate, innovative and flexible individual with excellent communication skills to join our Dietetic Team as an assistant practitioner.

This exciting post provides an opportunity to further develop your knowledge and skills within the inpatient settings across the Mental Health Care Division: Adult Mental Health Service, Older Adults, Addictions, Brain Injuries and Rehabilitation.

You will support a team of Registered Dietitians and work closely with the inpatient mental health wards and MDT to ensure patients in hospital meet their nutritional needs and develop the Dietetic service.

The diversity of the caseload will enable you to increase your skills and knowledge in Nutrition support, weight management in 1:1 and group setting. In addition, you will be providing health promotion, promoting the use of Nutritional screening, updating resources and liaising with catering teams under direct supervision from a Registered Dietitian.

Candidates should have some knowledge of nutrition or willing to learn, preferably with some experience of working in a mental health setting, with excellent communication and IT skills. A working knowledge of behaviour change and motivational interviewing would be desirable.

Main duties of the job

The post holder's primary focus is to assess service users needs within an agreed framework and plan, deliver and evaluate interventions under the supervision of a Dietitian. This will require the post holder to carry out assigned duties, involving direct care and observation of service users under guidance of a Dietitian. This will include reporting information collected and observations made directly or reported by ward staff whilst providing care to service-users.

The post holder will also be required to provide supervision, training and guidance to ward staff.

About us

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.

Date posted

11 March 2026

Pay scheme

Agenda for change

Band

Band 4

Salary

£27,485 to £30,162 a year per annum, pro rata

Contract

Permanent

Working pattern

Part-time

Reference number

350-MHC7845527

Job locations

Mental Health Care division Rathbone Hospital

Eleanor House, Mill Lane

Liverpool

L13 4AW

Job description

Job responsibilities

CLINICAL

To contribute to the delivery of a range of clinical and health promotion tasks under the direct supervision of the Dietitian.

To assist the Dietitians by being proactive in maximizing health and well being of service users by monitoring and reviewing service users on the wards and relaying their care plans and advice directly to service users and their carers and / or by telephone and email under the guidance of the Dietitians.

Participating in and developing health promotional activities and working with ward based staff to provide regular health promotion literature and presentations.

To report general observations and provide feedback to the qualified practitioner both verbally and in written formats as required. This should include any concerns arising from the service-users physical or mental health as appropriate.

To carry out physical measurements such as weight, height, waist circumference or alternative measurements and provide feedback to the Dietitian both verbally and in written formats, as required.

To contribute to the effective running of the service by providing and receiving information to/from other departments, e.g. catering department. Ensure this information is provided in the most effective way. i.e. telephone, fax, email or in writing.

To ensure care plans are effectively communicated to service users, relatives, carers and the multidisciplinary team.

To use a variety of verbal and non-verbal skills to overcome communication barriers presented by service users due to their mental health needs.

To document assessments and reviews and care plans in service users medical notes according to Trust policy including uploading documents onto service users medical records as required.

To carry out specific duties that contribute to the assessment of service users healthcare needs as requested by the Dietitian.

As directed by the Dietitian, maintain and train ward staff to keep accurate charts that contribute to the assessment of a service users nutritional intake and associated physical conditions e.g. diet and fluid charts, weight, oral intake and hand over formally to qualified dietitian.

To prepare agreed assessment reports and treatment plans to assist the qualified practitioner with care planning.

To send out written dietary information leaflets to patients and staff as instructed by Dietitian.

To deliver the structured MUST training session to clinical staff on request:

Help triage referrals

Assist qualified Dietitian to facilitate weight management and diabetes education.

Help with general admin duties, including developing resources as required

PROFFESSIONAL

To participate in the Dietetic Teams performance framework and work towards meeting identified goals and objectives.

To act, at all times, in accordance with Trust policies and procedures.

Comply with trust policy and ensure that all interactions with service users are in line with this e.g. Manual Handling.

Under the guidance and supervision of a Dietitian, to make accurate and appropriate entries into health records.

To assist the qualified practitioner to prepare reports and protocols.

To participate in Dietetic meetings and MDT staff meetings to assist effective two-way communication when required.

To seek advice and further training, if appropriate.

To make the Dietitian aware of any incidents arising during own span of duty and carry out any actions arising from this as directed.

To participate, as directed in the induction of new staff.

To provide supervision and guidance to support staff.

To participate in the support, education and training of support staff.