Dietitian: ICU and Preceptorship and Team Lead
Bedfordshire Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust
We have an exciting new role for an experienced Dietitian to join our adult team as lead for critical care and respiratory wards. This role also involves some team lead duties, requiring an ability to manage operationally a small team and offering the opportunity to develop your non-clinical skills.
You will join an established, supportive and progressive team who encourage staff and service development. Over the coming year the new critical care building will be opened offering an opportunity to work with the MDT to shape the service in this expanded, fresh new space.
Excellent opportunities for CPD and supervision are provided and audit and research are actively encouraged.
Main duties of the job
The post holder will provide a highly specialist nutrition and dietetic service managing a highly complex caseload of Critical Care and Respiratory service users. They will provide clinical leadership and undertake team lead duties for the adult Dietetic service to ensure delivery of effective, high-quality evidence-based care.
They will work as a member of the critical care multi-disciplinary team (MDT) providing expert dietetic advice to ensure optimal outcomes for patients.
Job responsibilities
Key clinical responsibilities:
* To manage a highly complex caseload of patients on the critical care unit and support outpatient clinics as appropriate, act as clinical lead and co-ordinate service improvement projects in this area.
* To manage a highly complex caseload of patients requiring parenteral nutrition, assisting in service improvement projects in this area.
* To provide leadership across the critical care and medical team working to ensure the delivery of an effective, high-quality, evidence-based dietetics service. This will involve working collaboratively with the gastroenterology and surgical dietetics team lead.
* To have an in-depth understanding of and provide leadership to ensure the effective running of the critical care and medical dietetics service.
* To accept clinical responsibility for a designated caseload of patients within your own scope of practice and organise this effectively and efficiently with regard to clinical priorities and use of time.
* To work as an autonomous practitioner by planning and prioritising own workload according to locally agreed priority coding and supporting dietetic assistant practitioners and less experienced dietitians to do the same.
* To undertake a comprehensive assessment (interpretation of biochemistry, anthropometrics, clinical condition, and diet history) of patients including those with highly complex presentations/multi-pathologies and use advanced clinical reasoning skills to set nutritional goals for each patient.
* Develop individual treatment plans for patients by calculating the nutritional requirements and support the prescription of feeds where required.
* To give expert opinion on highly complex nutrition-related issues where numerous social, ethical, psychological, and medical factors have to be considered and where there may be conflicting ideas from the multidisciplinary team.
* To negotiate and agree dietary interventions with patients and their carers, using appropriate counselling and motivational skills to optimise their nutritional status.
* To make recommendations for appropriate prescription of nutritional products according to local guidelines regarding the use of nutritional supplements and enteral feeding products.
* To ensure adequate monitoring and review of patients.
* To assess the suitability of incoming referrals according to the agreed referral criteria and liaise with the dietetic assistant practitioner if further information is required prior to acceptance.
* To co-ordinate appropriate follow-up, discharge arrangements and outward referrals to other services in order to facilitate the safe and timely discharge/transfer of care.
* To be responsible for safe discharge planning including co-ordination of patients requiring home enteral feeding.
* To have insight to recognise and act appropriately if vulnerable patients are at risk or deemed to be in need.
* To be responsible for maintaining accurate and comprehensive patient records in line with BDA, HCPC, Trust, and department standards.
* To take appropriate action using highly advanced problem-solving skills to assist patients, health and social care professionals and members of the public with queries relating to your own clinical areas.
* To work flexibly to support the critical care and medicine dietetics team.
* To provide cover for other Dietetic teams at short notice to cover unplanned and planned absences within the post holder's competency and skill level.
Person Specification
Qualifications
* Degree or postgraduate qualification in nutrition and/or dietetics
* HCPC
* Evidence of postgraduate CPD linked to critical care specialty
* Postgraduate PN courses
* Member of BDA
Experience
* Experience of working in a variety of clinical settings including critical care
* Competent in the independent assessment and management of highly complex patients
* Experience of supervising staff e.g. support workers, dietetic students
* Experience of working in the NHS
* Experience in providing parenteral nutrition care
Knowledge
* Sound clinical knowledge of dietetic treatment of adult service users and able to use this to clinically reason independently
* Understanding of clinical governance and audit
Skills
* Time management skills with ability to prioritise and manage own caseload and delegate to others
* Ability to communicate effectively with service users in one-to-one and group situations
* Excellent negotiation and problem-solving skills for management of complex cases and challenging situations.
* Data collection & analysis skills
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.
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