Lead Catering Dietitcian

Mersey Care NHS Foundation Trust; Warrington; On-site; GBP 40,000 - 50,000; Full time

Job summary

A healthcare trust in the North West is seeking a Trust Lead Catering Dietitian. This role involves collaborating with various healthcare teams to deliver comprehensive dietary services, ensuring nutritional adequacy of hospital menus, and providing specialized training. Applicants should possess a degree in Dietetics, relevant post-graduate qualifications, and experience in catering and nutrition. The organization supports professional development and values flexible working arrangements.

Benefits

Flexible working requests considered

Qualifications

• Registered Dietitian with experience in a catering team.
• Evidence of developing practice in a specialist area.
• Experience of training Dietetic staff and healthcare staff.

Responsibilities

• Work with catering teams to deliver various menus.
• Provide highly specialist Dietetic assessment and treatment.
• Lead health promotion related to nutrition and hydration.

Skills

Good interpersonal skills

Analytic and report writing skills

Highly developed communication skills

Presentation skills

Education

Health and Care Professions Council Registered Dietitian

Degree in Dietetics or Science/Nutrition Degree plus Post-graduate Diploma in Dietetics

Master's degree in relevant area

Clinical Supervisory Skills Course

Full member of British Dietetic Association

Tools

Diet analysis packages

Job description

To work in collaboration with the Catering and Dietetic Teams as the Trust Lead Catering Dietitian.To work with front line catering teams, catering managers, Dietitians, Speech and Language Therapists, Pharmacists, Nursing teams and other stakeholders to ensure the Trust delivers a wide range of standard hospital menus, therapeutic, religious, and cultural diets.To act as a source of expertise in the analysis, development, and review of hospital menus.Ensure all hospital menus are nutritionally adequate and reflect best practice guidelines including hospital food standards, allergen information and International Dysphagia Diet Standardisation Initiative (IDDSI) recommendations.

Main duties of the job

Responsible for supporting highly specialist nutrition and dietetic treatment or education and in the specialist areas of dietetics. This includes delivery and audit of training such as Malnutrition Universal Screening Tool (MUST).Attendance at and facilitation of patient/service user and carer forums.Advises all relevant catering and professional staff of nutrition care required, liaises with Catering Department to ensure patients/service users receive the most appropriate menus to meet their nutritional requirements.Provides advice to Dietitians from other hospitals around the country on specialised patient/service user care when requested.Assists members of the MDT and other colleagues in the development and promotion of the specialist service.Leads on health promotion in relation to Nutrition and Hydration within the Trust, supporting health awareness events such as Nutrition and Hydration week, Malnutrition week and Diabetes awareness week.Responsible for supervision when Student Dietitians are supporting the role of the Catering Dietitian.Works independently, being responsible for autonomous assessment, clinical decision making, treatment selection and evaluation, within the Health and Care Professions Council Code of Conduct, the British Dietetic Association Professional Standards of Practice and the Trusts policies and procedures.

About us

Mersey Care is one of the largest trusts providing physical health and mental health services in the North West, serving more than 1.4 million people across our region and are also commissioned for services that cover the North West, North Wales and the Midlands.

We offer specialist inpatient and community services that support physical and mental health and specialist inpatient mental health, learning disability, addiction and brain injury services. Mersey Care is one of only three trusts in the UK that offer high secure mental health facilities.

At the heart of all we do is our commitment to 'perfect care' - care that is safe, effective, positively experienced, timely, equitable and efficient. We support our staff to do the best job they can and work alongside service users, their families, and carers to design and develop future services together. We're currently delivering a programme of organisational and service transformation to significantly improve the quality of the services we provide and safely reduce cost as we do so.

Flexible working requests will be considered for all roles.

Job responsibilities

work in collaboration with the Catering and Dietetic Teams as the Trust Lead Catering Dietitian.To work with front line catering teams, catering managers, Dietitians, Speech and Language Therapists, Pharmacists, Nursing teams and other stakeholders to ensure the Trust delivers a wide range of standard hospital menus, therapeutic, religious, and cultural diets.To act as a source of expertise in the analysis, development, and review of hospital menus.Ensure all hospital menus are nutritionally adequate and reflect best practice guidelines including hospital food standards, allergen information and International Dysphagia Diet Standardisation Initiative (IDDSI) recommendations.To work jointly with patients/service users, catering, Dietetics and Speech and Language Therapy to initiate, plan and deliver Trust education and training in nutrition.To represent dietetics and catering at the Trust Nutrition and Hydration Steering Group, Patient Led Assessments of the Care Environment (PLACE) audits and catering meetings.Provide highly specialist Dietetic assessment, treatment, monitoring and management in one or more speciality areas of Dietetics when required.Act as a source of expertise in Dietetics practice locally, regionally and nationally.Be involved in the training and supervision of Dietetic Students and Dietetic Assistants as per British Dietetic Association (BDA) standards.Contribute to designing, planning, and implementing research and audit and contributes to publishing results, working in interdisciplinary teams or with other health professionals.Challenge professional and organisational boundaries to ensure that the role is focused on meeting the needs of the patients/service users.Contribute to the development of policy and services to reflect the needs of the patients/service users and services.To lead on the implementation of national and local policies and guidance such as the Hospital Food standards, the Nutrition and Hydration Strategy and BDA guidance.To have experience in working within physical health, mental health and learning disabilities.

Person Specification

Qualifications

• oHealth and Care Professions Council Registered Dietitian
• oDegree in Dietetics or Science/Nutrition Degree plus Post-graduate Diploma in Dietetics
• oMaster's degree in relevant area of practice or equivalent level of specialist dietetic experience and training
• oClinical Supervisory Skills Course and/or Teaching Certificate
• oClinical Supervisory Skills Course and/or Teaching Certificate
• oFull member of British Dietetic Association

Knowledge & Experience

• Post registration experience in working with a catering team.
• Evidence of continuous professional development.
• Evidence of developing practice in a specialist area.
• Evidence of participation in and contribution to the publication of research and audit in one or more of the named speciality areas.
• Experience of training Dietetic staff, students, and other healthcare staff
• Post graduate experience in the use of dietary analysis packages such as diet plan or Nutritics.

Values

• Accountability
• Support
• High professional standards
• Responsive to service users
• Engaging leadership style
• Transparency and honesty
• Discreet
• Change oriented

Skills

• Good interpersonal skills.
• Ability to interpret current health service national and local policy and guidelines, including national and local public health agenda.
• Ability to interpret current health service national and local policy and guidelines, including national and local public health agenda.
• Analytic and report writing skills.
• Highly developed communication and clinical skills.
• Ability to facilitate / lead discussions in professional/multi agency meetings.
• Evidence of professional development.
• Presentation skills with the ability to present to large groups.
• Proficient at time management, working to deadlines and good organisational skills.
• Self-motivated and committed to best practice.

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.