Family Care Lead - HospiceNHS
Job summary
JOIN OUR FAMILY CARE TEAM
Family Care Team Lead | Wakefield Hospice
An opportunity to lead people, shape services and improve how patients move through hospice care.
About the role
Wakefield Hospice is seeking an experienced, compassionate and forward-thinking professional to lead our integrated Family Care Team. Bringing together rehabilitation, reablement, discharge planning, family support and bereavement services, the team helps patients and those important to them experience coordinated, person-centred support throughout their hospice journey.
The successful candidate will provide strategic leadership for patient flow and discharge practice across the hospice, helping to develop pathways, reduce avoidable delay and make the best use of hospice capacity.
About you
You will be an experienced registered health or care professional with the credibility to lead across professional boundaries. You will combine compassionate people leadership with a strong understanding of complex discharge planning, integrated working and service improvement.
If you are passionate about leading integrated services, developing people and shaping the future of patient flow and family care in specialist palliative and end-of-life care, we would love to hear from you.
Main duties of the job
The Family Care Team Lead will provide compassionate, inclusive leadership to an integrated team spanning rehabilitation, reablement, discharge planning, family support, and bereavement services. This role drives the strategic development of a coordinated, person-centred service that supports patients and their loved ones holistically across their hospice journey. Key responsibilities include optimizing patient flow and discharge practice, fostering multidisciplinary autonomy for routine discharges, and managing complex care transitions through collaboration with internal and external healthcare partners. Additionally, the postholder will champion staff development, promote evidence-based continuous improvement, and contribute to wider hospice clinical leadership, including participation in the clinical on-call rota and the Specialist Palliative Care multidisciplinary team.
Job description
Key Responsibilities
Leadership and Team Development
Provide visible, compassionate and inclusive leadership to the multidisciplinary Family Care Team.
Create a positive, collaborative and high-performing team culture founded on accountability, psychological safety and continuous improvement.
Lead supervision, appraisal, recruitment, induction, workforce planning, succession planning and professional development.
Support staff wellbeing, reflective practice, learning and professional growth.
Educate, coach and mentor team members, students, volunteers and colleagues to promote evidence-based practice and integrated working.
Provide strategic leadership for the continued development of Family Care Services in response to patient need, organisational priorities and developments in specialist palliative and end-of-life care.
Lead service improvement and innovation, using evidence, activity, quality and patient-experience data to evaluate impact and inform service redesign.
Contribute to strategic planning, pathway development and business cases relevant to Family Care Services, patient flow and hospice capacity.
Family Care Services
Lead the coordinated delivery and ongoing development of rehabilitation, reablement, discharge planning, family support and bereavement services.
Ensure the professional and volunteer elements of the Family Care Team operate as an integrated pathway rather than as separate services.
Promote seamless transitions and continuity of care throughout the patient and family journey.
Ensure services remain responsive, person-centred, evidence-based and aligned with organisational priorities.
Ensure the Family Care Team is fully integrated within the operational life of inpatient and wider hospice services.
Act as a specialist resource for colleagues managing complex patient and family situations.
Promote effective collaboration between Family Care, Inpatient Services, Wellbeing, Outreach, Spiritual Care and developing Out of Hospice services.
Discharge Leadership and Patient Flow
Lead the development and implementation of an organisation-wide approach to patient flow and discharge planning.
Champion proactive discharge planning from the earliest appropriate stage of admission, ensuring patient choice, clinical need, rehabilitation potential and available community resources are considered.
Promote shared ownership of patient flow and discharge planning across the multidisciplinary team.
Develop the knowledge, confidence and capability of clinical staff to initiate and autonomously progress routine discharge planning within their professional roles.
Provide expert advice, leadership and coordination where discharge arrangements involve significant clinical, psychosocial, legal, safeguarding, funding or system complexity.
Coordinate and, where appropriate, chair complex discharge-planning meetings involving internal and external partners.
Support patients and those important to them to understand discharge options, care pathways and the implications of available choices.
Develop effective systems for identifying, monitoring and escalating barriers to discharge, using this intelligence to inform improvement activity and strategic planning.
Lead initiatives to reduce avoidable delays, improve patient flow and maximise the effective use of hospice beds and respite capacity.
Develop and monitor meaningful measures of patient flow, including delayed discharges, length of stay, discharge outcomes, patient experience and effective utilisation of hospice capacity.
Work with Continuing Healthcare, social care, community services, primary care, care providers, acute trusts and voluntary-sector partners to improve pathways and facilitate timely transitions.
Provide expert guidance on Continuing Healthcare, Fast Track funding and other relevant care and funding pathways.
Ensure the specialist contribution of the post is focused on complex practice, workforce capability and strategic improvement, rather than replacing the routine discharge responsibilities of the wider clinical team.
Quality, Governance and Professional Practice
Promote safe, high-quality and evidence-based care.
Maintain professional standards, accurate records and compliance with legislation, regulation and hospice policy.
Together with the Deputy Director of Care Services and the Quality and Audit Nurse, undertake audit, service evaluation and quality-improvement activity.
Provide leadership and support in safeguarding alongside the nominated Safeguard Lead, mental capacity and complex decision-making processes.
Work collaboratively with hospice staff and external agencies to identify, manage and respond to safeguarding concerns in line with local policies and procedures.
Analyse and report on service performance, patient flow and discharge outcomes, using findings to inform improvement.
Contribute to organisational learning arising from incidents, complaints, feedback and service evaluation.
Participate in the Specialist Palliative Care multidisciplinary team and clinical on-call rota.
Act as a role model, promoting accountability, learning and excellence in care.
Education and Partnership Working
Lead the development of a culture in which discharge planning, rehabilitation and family-centred care are recognised as responsibilities shared across the multidisciplinary team.
Design and deliver education, coaching, guidance and practical resources that improve staff confidence in discharge planning, Continuing Healthcare, Fast Track funding, community pathways and associated documentation.
Provide advice and professional support to staff, students and volunteers, particularly when managing complex patient and family situations.
Identify learning needs through audit, incidents, complaints, feedback, service evaluation and review of delayed discharges.
Promote reflective practice, professional curiosity, shared learning and continuous development.
Develop strong and credible relationships with health, social care and voluntary-sector partners.
Influence pathway development and system working to improve transitions, patient flow and outcomes for patients and families.
Work closely with Spiritual Care volunteers and other hospice services to ensure holistic support for patients and those important to them.
Contribute to organisational induction, education and leadership-development programmes.
About us
Wakefield Hospice, is committed to providing the highest level of symptom management and care for people who have advanced active, progressive and life threatening illness.
Wakefield Hospice is a purpose-built specialist palliative care unit that opened in April 1990 we are currently undergoing a refurb which will provide 16 individual beds, we have a day therapy unit, bereavement support and education. Over the years the day care unit developed initially into a day therapy unit and ultimately into a drop-In centre providing therapies, information and care for patients, carers and bereaved families.