Children's Continuing Care Practitioner

Job overview

Here at Whittington Health we have an exciting opportunity for a band 7 Specialist Paediatric Dietitian working within Paediatric Diabetes. We are looking for an enthusiastic, self motivated, confident and flexible team player to fill this position.

Main duties of the job

Provide specialist paediatric diabetes dietetic advice to patients, their carers and HCPs through formulation of treatment and education plans and prescription of dietary intervention.

To interpret, extract and analyse available patient information from a variety of sources.

Be responsible for the dietetic and nutritional management of patients under the care of the Paediatric Diabetes Multidisciplinary team.

Be an autonomous practitioner delivering highly specialist dietetic input within multidisciplinary and undisciplined settings.

Actively engage with the trust’s clinical governance programme and quality agenda framework by taking responsibility for ensuring continuing professional development, audit and research activities within this specialist area to work within the nutrition and dietetics paediatrics team at the Whittington Hospital.

Cover both inpatients and outpatients’ cohorts.

Working for our organisation

Whittington hospital is part of the ICO (Integrated Care Organisation) which includes acute and community children's services in Islington, Haringey and Barnet. The ICO is based in a culturally diverse part of North London with many multiethnic, bilingual and multilingual speaking communities. This may impact on the client's ability to engage in the therapeutic process.

Within Nutrition and Dietetics, there is a small but supportive team of acute Paediatric Dietitians with regular clinical supervision available and access to a wider peer group of Paediatric Dietitians across the Trust. The Nutrition & Dietetics service spans both the community and acute settings with over 50 staff consisting of Dietitians, Nutrition and Dietetic Assistants, Office Administrators and Nutrition Nurses.

We have comprehensive IT facilities and administrative support and a strong commitment to providing CPD opportunities. You will also have access to UCL Medical School library facilities.

There is the potential to be involved in research, so either experience in conducting research or an interest in doing so would be desirable. As part of your role, you will also be involved in regular audit and development projects, as well as line management and student training. We are committed to being involved in all aspects of teaching, and have regular training sessions throughout Whittington Health.

Detailed job description and main responsibilities

This post is for a Highly Specialist Paediatric Diabetes Dietitian. As a member of the paediatric diabetes multidisciplinary team and paediatric dietetic team, the post holder will need to demonstrate a high level of general paediatric dietetic knowledge and provide a specialist dietetic service to children and young adults with diabetes and associated conditions.

This post is based at the Whittington Hospital and covers both inpatient and outpatient cohorts. The Whittington Hospital is a busy District General Hospital, with Neonatal Intensive Care (NICU), SCBU and care of children and young adults with a wide range of conditions requiring nutrition support, including Diabetes, Neonatology, Oncology, Allergies, Coeliac disease and other Complex needs.

Person specification

Qualifications

Essential criteria

•Degree in Nutrition and Dietetics or equivalent, acceptable for registration with Health Care Professions Council e.g. BSc Nutrition and Dietetics.

●Member of the British Dietetic Association (BDA) or equivalent association and Member of the HCPC.

•Successful completion of highly specialist/expert short courses relevant to field of diabetes within dietetics.

Skills

Essential criteria

•In-depth post registration experience within clinical paediatric dietetics or other relevant field of dietetics.

•Excellent written and oral communication skills.

•Proven ability to communicate using a variety of methods to a range of professionals, non- professionals and patients.

•Excellent computer literacy skills.

•Advanced approaches to support clients & carers with challenging behaviour including advanced counselling skills.

•Ability to prioritise own workload.

•The application of Highly specialist knowledge of local cultural, linguistic & demographic factors to the management of a paediatric and young persons’ caseload.

•Of behaviour modification programmes for parents/carers and children around diabetes/lifestyle management.

•Ability to influence others.

•Of the key characteristics leading to a highly specialist assessment and differential diagnosis of children and young people with diabetes and other associated conditions.

•Of the range of intervention/management strategies of children and young people with diabetes and other associated conditions.

•Experience in the support and development of junior members of staff.

•Evidence of participation in clinical governance issues in relation to dietetic practice.

•Evidence of active participation in audit activities and quality improvement projects in dietetic practice.

•Student supervision and training.

Desirable criteria

•Experience of working with a multidisciplinary team.

•Of evidenced based practice to support assessment and intervention.

Personal qualities

Essential criteria

•Self-motivating.

•Flexible and adaptable.

•Ability to work autonomously and in a team setting.

•Ability to reflect/ question/evaluate own practice (evidence of CPD).

•Proven organisational skills.

SAFEGUARDING CHILDREN AND ADULTS

To comply with the Trust’s Safeguarding Children and Adults policies , procedures and protocols. All individual members of staff (paid or unpaid) have a duty to safeguard and promote the welfare of children, young people and vulnerable adults This will require you to:

Ensure you are familiar with and comply with the London Child Protection Procedures and protocols for promoting and safeguarding the welfare of children and young people.

Ensure you are familiar and comply with the London Multi Agency Safeguarding Vulnerable Adults Pan London Procedures.

Ensure you are familiar and comply with local protocols and systems for information sharing.

Know the appropriate contact numbers and required reporting lines.

Participate in required training and supervision.

Comply with required professional boundaries and codes of conduct

Whittington Health is committed to safeguarding all children and vulnerable adults and expects all staff and volunteers to share this commitment.