Job description

Job responsibilities

Job Summary:

Deliver holistic nursing care and support to babies, children and young people with palliative and end of life care needs and their families.

Lead and co-ordinate shifts and undertake day-to-day operational duties as required.

You will be required to provide care and occasionally across our other hospice localities.

Appointment to Band 5 or 6 is commensurate with nursing skills, experience and knowledge. Specific Responsibilities:

1. Deliver safe and effective nursing care involving use of a wide range of clinical skills. For example, clinical assessment and monitoring, intravenous therapy, parenteral nutrition, long-term ventilation and tracheostomy care and support to babies, children and young people whose conditions are stable, unstable, deteriorating and need end of life care.

2. Assess, plan, implement and evaluate care plans to meet the diverse and individual needs of babies, children, young people and their families, ensuring holistic care provided is family centred, needs led, evidence informed and meets all statutory requirements.

3. Provide support to the children, young people and family members to promote their resilience and wellbeing, including at the end of life and during bereavement, giving advice on practical issues and undertaking memory making activities, seeking support from wellbeing staff when necessary.

4. Maintain clinical records using both paper-based and SystmOne electronic care records system in accordance with best practice guidance.

5. Use clinical judgement and interpret clinical data to inform decision making, in consultation with others, to provide nursing care that meets the complexity of the palliative care needs.

6. Implement symptom management, escalation and advance care plans, evaluating them in partnership with the children or young people and their families under the direction of a Clinical Nurse Specialist, Matron or Nurse Consultant.

7. Lead and co-ordinate shifts and undertake day-to-day operational duties as required, including providing the initial response to all accidents, incidents and complaints reported during shifts, ensuring immediate follow up actions are taken as required.

8. Delegate nursing care to senior care assistants and care assistants following EACH guidelines providing:

Assessment and ongoing clinical review of the babys, childs or young persons need and the appropriateness of delegation of care.

Oversight of practice and responding to queries from the senior care assistants and care assistants delivering care.

9. Act as a family co-ordinator to designated families, maintaining regular contact with them and actively participating at care co-ordination team and locality multi-professional meetings, ensuring any significant changes identified for designated families are discussed and followed up with any action required.

10. Attend external multidisciplinary, discharge planning, review and debrief meetings representing EACH to maintain positive and effective communication with other agencies involved with families receiving our services.

11. Participate in the ongoing development of our care services, including quality and safety initiatives such as audits and evaluations.

12. Mentor new care staff and students, providing support, training and sharing professional expertise.

13. Participate in regular management, clinical and safeguarding supervision sessions.

Person Specification

Experience

Essential

• Post registration experience with demonstrated experience of delivering a wide range of clinical skills, including intravenous therapy. Experience of using clinical judgement to interpret clinical data to inform decision making.
• Experience of leading and coordinating shifts or teams. Evidence of working within a professional, multi-disciplinary team. Evidence of providing mentorship to staff and students.

Desirable

• Experience of delivering parenteral nutrition, long-term ventilation and/or tracheostomy care.
• Experience of working in a palliative care service.
• Experience of working with learning and physically disabled children and young people with mental health needs.
• Experience of providing community care services. Experience of managing a small group of staff and resources on a day-to-day basis.
• Experience of working with volunteers, either personally or professionally.
• Evidence of participation in research and audit.

Other Requirements

Essential

• Current driver's licence and own car essential (EACH has a small pool of cars which can be used when available).
• Ability to occasionally work in the other hospice localities (Suffolk, Norfolk and Cambridgeshire) to respond to increased demand for complex or end of life care.
• Ability to participate in the local on- call rota when required to deliver urgent or end of life care in the hospice or community. An on-call allowance is payable for each session.

Qualifications

Essential

• Registered Nurse (Child, Adult or Learning Disabilities) with demonstrable experience of caring for babies, children or young people in an acute, community, palliative or complex needs setting.
• Knowledge of current legislation relating to babies, children and young people, including best practice in safeguarding children.
• Knowledge and understanding of social care.
• Mentor qualification or willingness to work towards it.
• Evidence of commitment to own continuing professional development.

Desirable

• Degree level qualification.
• Experience of using SystmOne electronic care record system or similar.
• Management/leadership training or qualification.

Skills & Abilities

Essential

• Excellent written, oral communication and interpersonal skills.
• Able to confidently use IT, including email, Microsoft Office, and video conferencing such as Teams or Zoom.
• Ability to reflect on practice and propose changes.
• Ability to use initiative and problem solve.
• Ability to plan and manage own time. Ability to lead and work as part of a team.
• Ability to be flexible and able to adapt to change at short notice. Proven track record of reliability.

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 .

Employer details

Employer name

East Anglia’s Children’s Hospices

Address

East Anglia’s Children’s Hospices

Church Lane

Milton

Cambridge

CB24 6AB

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