Palliative Care Clinical Nurse Specialist Band 7

Transformation Unit; England; On-site; GBP 56,000 - 63,000; Full time

Job summary

Royal Free London NHS Foundation Trust is seeking a Band 7 Palliative Care Clinical Nurse Specialist to join the inpatient team. The CNS will work within the Palliative Care Team, providing expert clinical care, education, and leadership across palliative and end-of-life services.

The post requires extensive experience in palliative/end-of-life care, 7-day service involvement, and autonomous caseload management, with a focus on delivering high-quality patient and family support.

Qualifications

• First level Registered Nurse (Adult Nursing).
• Evidence of CPD through maintenance of a portfolio.
• Degree level study – PGCert/ Master’s in Palliative Care desirable.
• Advanced communication skills course.
• Physical assessment course.

Responsibilities

• Act as a resource of clinical excellence in palliative care nursing and ensure national/local policies are followed.
• Assess, plan, implement and evaluate holistic patient care.
• Work autonomously managing caseload with advanced clinical judgement.
• Assist in delivering education on Palliative and End of Life Care to staff.
• Participate in 7-day service and MDT activities.

Education

First level Registered Nurse (Adult Nursing)

Evidence of CPD through maintenance of a portfolio

Degree level study – PGCert/ Master’s in Palliative Care

Advanced Communication Skills Course

Physical Assessment Course

Job description

Employer Royal Free London NHS Foundation Trust Employer type NHS Site North Middlesex University Hospital Town Edmonton Salary £55,524 - £62,652 per annum inclusive of Outer HCAs Salary period Yearly Closing 25/11/2026 23:59

Palliative Care Clinical Nurse Specialist Band 7

Band 7

Our trust has over 17,000 staff serving 2 million patients every year. It comprises Barnet Hospital, Chase Farm Hospital, the Royal Free Hospital, North Middlesex University Hospital and more than 30 services in the community. This larger scale organisation provides an unprecedented opportunity for us to continue our pioneering work, particularly in finding ways to deliver even better care to our patients.

Our mission is to deliver world class care and expertise in our clinical services, underpinned by world class teaching and research and we will continue to measure our progress against our five governing objectives: excellent outcomes, excellent patient and staff experience, excellent value for taxpayers’ money, being safe and meeting our external duties, and building a strong organisation.

Everyone is welcome at Royal Free London NHS Foundation Trust. We're proud of our diversity and we continue to undertake new initiatives to advance equality for LGBT+, BME, gender equality, staff carers and people with disabilities and lived experiences to promote good relations and understanding between our staff.

Artificial intelligence (AI) is a set of technology that can perform various tasks that typically required human intelligence. Your application is your opportunity to demonstrate to us how you meet the requirements of the role. We recognise that AI tools can support accessibility, equity and confidence for applicants.However, it’s important that examples and responses genuinely reflect your own experience and abilities, as these will be explored further during the selection process. AI must not be used to provide misleading or false information during any stage of the application journey. Further guidance can be found in the NLPSS Applicant Toolkit https://royalfree.pagetiger.com/cuuomnr/1 .

Royal Free London NHS Foundation Trust is committed to ensuring that its recruitment processes are carried out with integrity, transparency, and fairness for all applicants. To help maintain these standards, we ask candidates to provide accurate and truthful information throughout the recruitment process.

If incorrect or misleading information is identified, this may affect the progression of an application, any employment offer, or continued employment. As part of our due diligence, the company may verify the information provided by applicants and take appropriate act ion where necessary.

We do not charge applicants any fees at any stage of the recruitment process, including applications, interviews, sponsorship arrangements, pre-employment checks, or employment offers. All vacancies are advertised through TRAC/NHS Jobs and candidates are assessed solely on their skills, qualifications, experience, and suitability for the role. If you are asked to make a payment in connection with an NHS job opportunity, please treat this as suspicious and contact the organisation directly using the details published on our official career's website

We have an exciting opportunity for a Band 7 CNS to work within our highly skilled, motivated and dynamic team. We aim to make a difference and improve the experience of palliative care patients at various stages of their disease trajectory.

The post will be based within the existing inpatient Palliative Care Team. We offer 7 day face to face support to ensure that people with specialist palliative care needs, will receive the best quality care. The team currently consists of 4 palliative consultants’ equivalent to 2.5 WTE, 1 Band 8a Lead Nurse, 4 WTE Band 7 CNS, 1 WTE band 6 Associate CNS, 1 WTE Band 7 Palliative Care Discharge Coordinator.

The Palliative Care Clinical Nurse Specialist (CNS) is a specialist clinician with extensive experience and knowledge of caring for patients with advanced life threatening illness. The CNS contributes to the provision of the palliative care service in the acute setting as part of the MDT, working collaboratively with colleagues, patients, carers, other health and social care professionals, statutory, voluntary and independent organisations to ensure optimum patient management.

Main duties of the job

As a senior nurse, the CNS will be expected to:

• manage a caseload autonomously and provide expert advice and support to patients with life limiting illness and potentially facing end of life care issues, and support them and their families, using advanced clinical judgement and knowledge in palliative care.
• participate in providing a 7-day face-to-face service.
• contribute to the weekly Hospital Palliative Care MDT meeting.
• design and deliver specialist palliative care education, as well as end of life care to colleagues and other health and social care professionals.
• take part in regular palliative care team audits and review of clinical practice, to develop research skills and contribute to the development of multi-disciplinary research within palliative care.
• act as a resource, educator and advocate for patients, their carers and healthcare professionals.
• work within statutory legislation and local policies and procedures in relation to palliative care and end of life care.

Working for our organisation

North Mid is part of North Central London integrated care system – consisting of the NHS and Local authority organisations in Camden, Islington, Barnet, Enfield and Haringey. As with other ICSl's, we are working increasingly closely with partners and indeed many of our financial and performance objectives are measured at this system level. Whilst all organisations remain as standalone, statutory bodies we have an ICSl infrastructure for making shared decisions and agreeing shared approaches.

We are proud of our staff and want to ensure their training allows them to provide excellent clinical care. We are also a training unit for medical students from UCL and St George’s University Grenada, and for nursing and midwifery students from Middlesex and City Universities.

Detailed job description and main responsibilities

• 1. Acts as a resource of clinical excellence in the speciality of palliative care nursing, and ensure that national and local policies are implemented and followed.
• 2. Assess, plan, implement and evaluate holistic patient care based on sound rationale and evidence-based practice to influence and implement treatment.
• 3. Work autonomously demonstrating ability to manage clinical caseload ensuring it reflects the core components of the Clinical Nurse Specialist role.
• 4. Using advanced communication skills, advise and empower other professionals who are directly involved in the delivery of palliative care.
• 5. Participate in the triage processes and standards of response to new referrals and taking part in the daily allocations.
• 6. Maintain and be responsible for electronic and written records in line with the organisational guidelines.
• 7. Offer skilled emotional and psycho-social support and refer on to other members of the multidisciplinary team as appropriate.
• 8. Participate in the weekend face to face on call rota and work within a flexible approach that is responsive to patient/client need.
• 9. Ensure symptoms are optimally managed and anticipatory prescribing needs are identified to provide for imminent changes in condition.
• 10. Offer bereavement support to patient and families, identifying those at risk of complicated bereavement
• 11. Recognise and take appropriate action in issues related to Mental Capacity Act and Safeguarding
• 12. Be able to mobilise other services to contribute to patient care; working closely with the multidisciplinary team to enable best care and a shared understanding of the patient’s needs
• 13. Develop and maintain close working relationships with all statutory and/or voluntary agencies
• 14. Promotes evidence based practice with measurable standards and outcomes through the process of audit and benchmarking
• 15. Partakes in Clinical Discussion Groups/Clinical supervision as provided
• 16. Participates actively in the delivery of education on Palliative and End of Life Care across the Group
• 17. Use the extended role as a non-medical prescriber, where appropriate and once authorised, adhering to the Royal Pharmaceutical Societies and by the NMC standards.To audit prescribing practice and ensure prescribing pads are stored safely.

Person specification

Education and professional qualifications

• First level Registered Nurse (Adult Nursing)
• Evidence of CPD through maintenance of a portfolio
• Degree level study – PGCert/ Master’s degree or willingness to work towards this Palliative Care qualification
• Advanced Communication Skills Course or similar
• Physical Assessment Course

Experience

• Extensive experience within palliative/end of life / long term conditions
• Minimum of 3 years’ experience of working Band 6 level or above
• Experience of managing a clinical caseload autonomously
• Experience of delivering educational sessions and developing training programmes
• Willingness to participate in 7 day working / on call rota and flexible in approach in order to meet the demands of the service
• Experience in managing challenging situations and ethical dilemmas
• Knowledge and experience of research

Skills and aptitudes

• Advanced written and verbal skills
• Sound organisational skills, including ability to give directions
• Ability to prioritise workload, balancing clinical and non-clinical activities
• Previous participation in quality initiatives or audit

Personal Qualities & attributes

• Ability to identify own learning and support needs
• Reliable, honest and trustworthy

Applications are welcome from people wishing to job share or work flexible patterns. We are committed to equal opportunities.

Please be advised that due to exceptionally high demand, all Royal Free accommodation is at full capacity and waiting lists are being held. Average waiting times are 12 months. Please do not rely on Trust accommodation when you commence your role and ensure you investigate alternative accommodation for your arrival.

Employer certification / accreditation badges

You must have appropriate UK professional registration.

This post is subject to the Rehabilitation of Offenders Act 1974 (Exceptions) Order 1975 (Amendment) (England and Wales) Order 2020 and it will be necessary for a submission for Disclosure to be made to the Disclosure and Barring Service.