Community Paediatric Dietician

Whittington Health Nhs Trust; Wood Green; On-site; GBP 21,000 - 32,000; Part time

Job summary

Whittington Health NHS Trust in London is seeking a part-time paediatric dietitian to join a multidisciplinary team delivering community-based nutrition care for babies, children and young people with complex needs.

The role covers clinics from Tynemouth Road Health Centre and special schools, with a focus on enteral feeding, growth monitoring and inter-agency collaboration. Training and development opportunities are offered to support professional growth.

Qualifications

• Ability to assess and treat children and young people with severe and complex disabilities.
• Ability to evaluate intervention programmes.
• Knowledge of providing Home Enteral Tube Feeding (HETF) in the community.

Responsibilities

• Hold a caseload and provide dietetic assessment, advice and monitoring for children with complex health or neurodisabilities.
• Provide specialist intervention to neonatal patients requiring HETF or oral nutritional supplements.
• Reflect on clinical practice and provide evidence of sound clinical judgement.
• Maintain accurate records and communicate treatment outcomes with other professionals.
• Manage own clinical caseload with clear priority setting and professional accountability.
• Carry out growth measurements and assess BMI, protein/energy intakes, vitamins and nutrients.
• Support transition of children between centres, nurseries, schools and adult services.
• Undertake home visits when required in line with Trust policies.

Skills

Disability management

Intervention evaluation

Community HETF knowledge

Education

Nutrition and Dietetics degree

HPC registration

Job description

Job summary

This is an exciting opportunity to join a supportive and dynamic team in the London Borough of Haringey, working for Whittington Health NHS Trust. The post is a part time (22.5 hrs/week) based at Tynemouth Road Health Centre in Tottenham and in the special schools within the borough. You will be part of a multidisciplinary team providing care to babies, children and young people with a range of needs including those who are enterally fed, autistic young people and babies and children with feeding difficulties. The trust offers excellent opportunities to develop personal and professional skills through well supported training and development initiatives.

Main duties of the job

The post holder will provide direct clinical care to babies and children in the community with a range of conditions and disabilities. We deliver services in the community from our base in Tynemouth Road and our special schools from ages 0-19. The caseload consists of children who are enterally fed as well as autistic young people with restricted eating and babies and younger children with complex needs.

About us

Whittington Health serves a richly diverse population and works hard to ensure that all our services are fair and equally accessible to everyone. Nowhere is this more obvious than in the way we look after our staff. We aim to employ a workforce which is as representative as possible of this population, so we are open to the value of differences in age, disability, gender, marital status, pregnancy and maternity, race, sexual orientation, and religion or belief. The Trust believes that as a public sector organisation we have an obligation to have recruitment, training, promotion and other formal employment policies and procedures that are sensitive to these differences. We think that by doing so, we are better able to treat our patients as well as being a better place to work.

Job responsibilities

• To hold a case load and provide, dietetic assessment, advice and monitoring regarding children who have complex health and/ or neurodisability (cerebral palsy, syndromes, profound and multiple learning disabilities.
• To provide specialist intervention to neonatal patients requiring Home Enteral Tube Feeding or Oral Nutritional Supplements.
• To reflect on clinical practice, identifying strengths and needs and providing evidence of sound clinical judgement.
• To act professionally and adhere to national best practice guidance and BDA guidance at all times
• To maintain accurate and comprehensive records of dietary advice given to patients and record clinical decisions in accordance with BDA and Trust/ legal standards, and to communicate treatment outcomes with other professionals as appropriate.
• To be professionally and legally responsible/ accountable for the management of your own clinical caseload and to organise this effectively with regards to clinical priority.
• To calculate Body Mass index, protein/ energy intakes, vitamin and nutritional intake of children, in order to meet the nutritional demands and expected reference nutrient intakes.
• To carry out growth measurements on children through height and weight assessments, and ensuring correct equipment is used whilst carrying out growth assessments.
• To monitor and review the progress of children in caseload and facilitate the development of care plans as appropriate using evaluation and outcome measures.
• To work autonomously, carrying out full dietary assessments providing comprehensive treatment/ care plans, and giving specialist advice to patients, carers and clinicians.
• To develop skills, to be able to cover and monitor enteral fed children as required.
• To support the effective transition of children between childrens centres/ nurseries, between schools and post school provisions to adult services with regards to aspects of nutrition.
• To ensure the practice is adapted to meet individual/ client needs/circumstances; taking into account cultural and linguistic backgrounds.
• To undertake home visits, as necessary, in compliance with the Trust Home Visiting Safety Policy.
• To be responsible for maintaining up to date knowledge of Child Protection procedures and attend professional or strategy meeting at the request of the Area Child Protection Team/Social services. To ensure mandatory child protection training is attended
• To understand and interpret the medical assessments and treatments i.e. medications, investigations, surgical treatments which may affect the nutritional management

Person Specification

Education / Qualifications

Essential

• Professional Degree/diploma in Nutrition and Dietetics
• HPC registration

Skills & Abilities

Essential

• Ability to assess and treat children and young people who have severe and complex disabilities
• Ability to evaluate intervention programmes.
• Knowledge of providing HETF in the community

Knowledge & Experience

Essential

• Sufficient post graduate experience to meet the clinical knowledge skills and experience required
• Broad range of Paediatric experience at band 5 and band 6 level
• Understanding of child protection procedures and responsibilities in regard to this

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.

Certificate of Sponsorship

Applications from job seekers who require current Skilled worker sponsorship to work in the UK are welcome and will be considered alongside all other applications. For further information visit the UK Visas and Immigration website (Opens in a new tab). From 6 April 2017, skilled worker applicants, applying for entry clearance into the UK, have had to present a criminal record certificate from each country they have resided continuously or cumulatively for 12 months or more in the past 10 years. Adult dependants (over 18 years old) are also subject to this requirement. Guidance can be found here Criminal records checks for overseas applicants (Opens in a new tab).

UK Registration

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