Band 6 Community Dietitian Nutrition SupportNHS

Job summary

Are you passionate about nutrition support and keen to extend your skills in managing complex patients? We have an exciting opportunity for an experienced dietitian to join our friendly community nutrition support team.

Our Band 6s provide specialist assessment & intervention for community patients requiring home enteral feeding and/or complex oral nutrition support, acting as a resource for junior staff and other health professionals in the management of undernutrition across Birmingham.

We are seeking dietitians with some experience of nutrition support, with excellent communication and time management skills, and a patient-centred and solution-focused professional practice.

We offer a flexible working environment in a supportive team, with the opportunity to build fulfilling relationships with your patients and colleagues.

Main duties of the job

You will manage a caseload of home enteral feeding and complex oral nutrition support patients in your own defined geographical area in Birmingham - this includes visiting patients in their own homes and care homes, and carrying out community clinics via telephone or in health centres around the city. We try to arrange this practically to avoid excessive travel time for our team members.

After a comprehensive induction you will have a high degree of autonomy in managing your caseload but we are a welcoming supportive team - there is always someone available to message or call, and we meet regularly face to face for clinical supervision and service development.

You will give clinical supervision to our Band 4 and 5s, who see the majority of our oral nutrition support patients, supporting their development by giving them graded exposure to the more complex patients on your caseload. We are also proud to provide highly rated supervision to dietetic learners and apprentices.

The most important skills and qualities for success in this role are:

• the ability to communicate with a diverse range of people and build strong working relationships
• the willingness to build on and share your clinical knowledge in nutrition support and the medical conditions our patients live with
• developing the ability to take complex, evidence-based decisions both in the management of individual patients and prioritisation of your overall caseload.

Job description

Please see the attached job description & person specification document for a detailed description of the duties, responsibilities and key relationships of the role.

Highlights include:

• adhering to HCPC standards of proficiency, continuing professional development, conduct, performance and ethics
• undertaking comprehensive assessment of patients' clinical needs in a holistic manner using specialised knowledge and a broad range of nutritional assessment skills, measurement and techniques
• negotiating and agreeing nutritional goals with patients/carers using advanced communication skills, including identifying barriers to change and helping patients/carers to manage them
• liaising with a range of patients, carers, health professionals and suppliers to ensure the provision of effective nutrition support
• managing risk within own clinical caseload and escalating where appropriate
• MDT working with teams inside and outside the Trust
• contributing to clinical governance and quality improvement in the service including audit, research, clinical outcome measures, EPR improvement, and the development and review of local clinical pathways and policies
• achieving basic competencies in knowledge and care of enteral feeding tubes
• professional development opportunities such as the PENG Clinical Update course, and further shadowing and/or study relating to a range of clinical areas such as neurodegenerative conditions, COPD, dementia, dysphagia, enteral feeding and more, in order to develop and consolidate the skills to work with complex patients
• supervision, teaching, co-ordination and assessment of students and junior staff
• producing practical advice and resources by interpreting, translating and critically evaluating evidence and making this relevant to the intended audience

Key things our team members tell us they appreciate about working in the community nutrition support team are the greater opportunities for flexible working and maintaining work-life balance (our patients also benefit from our increased flexibility and responsiveness), and the hard-working, kind and supportive ethos of the team. Team members have diverse backgrounds and experience in clinical areas such as oncology, neurorehabilitation, paediatrics and diabetes, and we love to share our knowledge to ensure the best outcomes for our patients.

In terms of the wider department, Birmingham Community Nutrition provides a comprehensive community citywide service and employs over 70 staff. We also support the training of dietetic students from two higher education institutions (A, B & C placements). We actively participate in clinical audit and service development.

Benefits of working for Birmingham Community Nutrition include free parking, excellent access to IT equipment to work flexibly, up to date office facilities and comprehensive admin support dedicated to the service.

The department has a structured approach to Clinical Governance and your personal development via preceptorship, annual appraisals, clinical supervision and training opportunities. Career development, flexible working and staff support are given high priority in the Trust, whose goal is to be a truly inclusive organisation and a great place to work

About us

Be Part of Our Team...

BCHC has more than 5000 staff working across Birmingham and the West Midlands in a wide range of community nursing and specialist healthcare roles. BCHC delivers over 100 clinical services, in people's homes, health centres, clinics and inpatient facilities. We deliver a wide range of services for children, young people and families as well as adults and community services, two community hospitals, services for people with learning disabilities, the internationally recognised West Midlands Rehab Centre and one of Europe's leading Dental Hospitals and School of Dentistry. We deliver all of this with a commitment to integrated, personalised care that is rooted in our local communities. We have an ambition to deliver outstanding, integrated care as one of the key NHS providers in the West Midlands.

If you want to 'Be Part of Our Team' and work with a Foundation Trust which is continuously striving for best care and healthy communities, we want to hear from you.