Lead Clinical Nurse Specialist in Palliative Care

Job description

Job responsibilities

Key Accountabilities

Clinical

• Accept referrals as agreed through current referral process and pathways.
• Undertake a holistic assessment of the Specialist Palliative Care needs of patients/carers, and plan appropriate care.
• Be responsible for the provision of Specialist Palliative Care advice and support to patients, health care professionals, and other carers, to meet the needs identified in the assessment.
• Plan and undertake follow up and support visits when required, continuing specialist input to the care of patients and their families.
• Provide accurate information to patients/carers/professionals as appropriate.
• Provide bereavement support to carers and families.
• Act as a resource for integrated care teams, primary and secondary care professionals and social care and tertiary providers involved in the care of patients with palliative care needs.
• Act as a mentor for staff by supporting individual coping strategies.
• Contribute to the weekly SPC multidisciplinary team meeting
• Attend other MDT team meetings when requested to do so in acute and community settings attend and contribute to
• GP Palliative Care (GSF) Meetings
• Liaise with/refer to other services where appropriate to ensure the needs of patients and carers are met.

Communication

• Utilise a wide range of communication skills to facilitate the development of a therapeutic relationship with patients and carers.
• Provide psychological and emotional support.
• Communicate effectively with other professionals involved in the care of patients on the caseload.
• Recognise and respond to complex relationship dynamics between patients, families and carers.
• Use formal and informal opportunities for education to guide and support those involved in the patients care to improve communication skills.

Education

• Contribute to the development, and educational needs of other health care professionals. This includes staff within the hospice but also outsourcing to other professionals to benefit the patients and to support income generation of the hospice by outsourcing appropriate teaching sessions.
• Participate in the delivery of palliative care related courses/study days.
• Provide informal education to other members of the multidisciplinary teams during clinical practice.
• Maintain, update and develop personal professional knowledge and skills to achieve high standards of patient care at all times.

Managerial

• Manage own workload, caseload and capacity through effective caseload management and teamwork
• Maintain accurate records, including Systmone.
• Participate in regular team business/operational meetings to shape the strategic planning of the service.
• Participate in regular specialist palliative care meetings, with representation from national and clinical network palliative care organisations to facilitate and plan local services.
• Recognise risk, utilise risk management system to document risk and implement control measures to mitigate risk within the team and service.
• Manage compliments, complaints, concerns and grievances within the team and service.
• Engage in senior leadership meetings.
• People management within the CNS team to ensure regular 1:1, supervision, and appraisals are completed. Also to ensure high level of knowledge and skills are maintained for the role and manage competencies and conduct within the team.
• Escalate necessary matters to the Director of clinical services.

Clinical Governance/Quality Assurance

• Ensure team compliance and key performance indicators (KPIs) are met, managed and maintained.
• Ensure the CNS team is working to a CQC ready standard and maintaining gold standard service in line with current policies, processes, legislation and contracts and agreements.
• Strive to maintain and improve own knowledge and skills in relation to all aspects of specialist palliative care.
• Understand, interpret, and participate in the research process and utilise relevant findings to inform practice.
• Work within agreed policies/procedures and governance of Bassetlaw hospice.
• Work within national and local standards set for the Community Specialist Palliative care teams.
• Use audit to evaluate standards of care delivered, documentation, workload and education provision.
• Contribute to the development of policies, procedures and guidelines in relation to palliative care.
• Critically evaluate own performance through reflection, analysis, and performance appraisal development (PAD).
• Undertake clinical supervision and provide clinical supervision for others
• Seek opportunities to lead and support quality initiatives at local, network and national level.

For more information, please see the supporting documents

Person Specification

Qualifications

Essential

• Please provide details of your CPD, using examples where necessary.
• Please provide your registration number of your NMC professional registration.

Experience

Essential

• Please provide detailed information of how you feel that your experience is suitable for this role; please provide examples to support your application referring to the job description and person specification for guidance.

Personal Qualities

Essential

• Please provide details for why you would be a great fit for this role and why you have decided to apply.

Knowledge and skills

Essential

• Please provide detailed information of how you feel that your knowledge and skills are suitable for this role; please provide examples to support your application referring to the job description and person specification for guidance.

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.

UK Registration

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

Employer details

Employer name

Primary Integrated Community Services

Address

Bassetlaw Hospice

North Road

Retford

DN22 7XF

Employer's website

http://picsnhs.org.uk/ (Opens in a new tab)