Lead Catering Dietitian

Mersey Care NHS Foundation Trust; Winwick; On-site; GBP 30,000 - 50,000; Full time

Job summary

A leading health trust in the UK seeks a Catering Dietitian to join their team. The successful candidate will lead the catering and dietetic services, ensuring the delivery of nutritious meals that meet health standards. Key responsibilities include collaboration with various healthcare teams, providing nutritional training, and supervising dietetic students. This role offers opportunities to work autonomously and contribute to health promotion initiatives within the Trust.

Qualifications

• Experience in delivering nutrition education and training.
• Ability to work independently and make clinical decisions.
• Knowledge of hospital food standards and dietary guidelines.

Responsibilities

• Lead as the Trust Lead Catering Dietitian.
• Ensure hospital menus are nutritionally adequate.
• Provide specialist Dietetic assessment and treatment.

Skills

Collaboration with stakeholders

Nutritional analysis

Training and education

Clinical decision-making

Education

Degree in Dietetics

Job description

Key Responsibilities

• 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 & 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.
• Responsible for supporting highly specialist nutrition and dietetic treatment or education in the specialist areas of dietetics; this includes delivery and audit of training such as the Malnutrition Universal Screening Tool (MUST).
• Attendance at and facilitation of patient/service user and carer forums.
• Advises all relevant catering and professional staff of the nutrition care required, liaises with the 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 & 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 Trust’s policies and procedures.

About Mersey Care

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.

Additional Information

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 & 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 contributing to publishing results, working in interdisciplinary teams or with other health professionals.

Challenge professional and organisational boundaries to ensure 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.

This advert closes on Monday 2 Feb 2026