Clinical Nurse Specialist

Job overview

An exciting opportunity has arisen for an experienced and compassionate nurse to join the End of Life and Bereavement Service at The Christie as a Clinical Nurse Specialist on a 12-month fixed-term maternity cover. This rewarding role offers the opportunity to make a real difference to the lives of patients with advanced cancer and those important to them, ensuring they receive high-quality, personalised end of life and bereavement care. Working as part of the Supportive Oncology Division, you will provide expert clinical advice, emotional support and specialist care for patients and families throughout the final stages of life and into bereavement. Working collaboratively with multidisciplinary teams across the Trust and external healthcare providers, you will support advance care planning, complex decision-making and coordinated care, ensuring patients receive care that reflects their wishes and priorities. You will also play an important role in supporting and educating colleagues to improve end of life care across the organisation. This is an excellent opportunity for an experienced nurse with a passion for palliative and end of life care who is committed to delivering compassionate, person-centred care within one of Europe's leading cancer centres.

Main duties of the job

As an End of Life and Bereavement Clinical Nurse Specialist, you will provide expert assessment, advice and support to patients with advanced cancer and those important to them, ensuring high-quality, individualised care throughout the end of life pathway.

You will work closely with inpatient and outpatient teams, specialist palliative care services, community providers and hospices to coordinate care, facilitate advance care planning and support complex clinical decision-making. The role includes providing specialist symptom management advice, emotional support, bereavement support and guidance for patients, relatives and carers.

You will act as an expert resource for healthcare professionals across the Trust, delivering education, supporting service development and promoting best practice in end of life and bereavement care. The post holder will also contribute to audit, quality improvement and implementation of national guidance, helping to ensure services continue to provide compassionate, evidence-based care for patients and families.

Detailed job description and main responsibilities

Clinical Responsibilities

• To undertake and demonstrate expert clinical knowledge and advanced skills for the management of patients with complex and intractable problems through direct clinical input.
• To provide clinical advice regarding end of life care to clinical staff, patients and their families/carers.
• Discuss and agree with colleagues end of life and bereavement assessment and care delivery processes incorporating current practice, evidence base, future trends and developments in care, timeliness of interventions and their related risks.
• To undertake and evaluate the effectiveness of generic and specialist end of life and bereavement care interventions which are consistent with evidence based practice, whilst transferring and applying knowledge and skills to meet the patients’ needs.
• To monitor the effectiveness of the end of life and bereavement care programs and renegotiate/redesign where indicated to meet patient and carer needs.
• To explain clearly to staff the benefits and risks of different end of life and bereavement care interventions, the alternative approaches available and the role of the multi-professional team.
• To discuss and agree short, medium or long term goals for bereavement care, prioritise and develop plans with the multi-professional team.
• To utilise specialist knowledge to enable colleagues to develop their competence in using different interventions in end of life and bereavement care.
• Independently assess, implement, and evaluate patients with complex and intractable problems using holistic needs assessment.
• To refer to other specialists when needs and risks are beyond one’s own scope of practice.
• To educate the multidisciplinary team in co-ordinating and participating in end of life & bereavement discussions, and recommending best course of action as necessary.
• To practice as a non-medical prescriber.
• Independently deliver significant news to patients with complex psychological needs and support both patients and their carers.
• Demonstrate advanced communication skills when dealing with difficult or challenging situations.
• Manage clinical caseload, prioritising patient need across in-patient and out-patient settings to enable rapid response to referrals for urgent advice.
• Lead multi-disciplinary discussions on current caseload within the Trust to ensure continuity and co-ordination of optimum patient care.
• Establish and maintain effective communication with patients and patients and carers/relatives within the clinical setting using effective strategies to overcome barriers to communication.
• Utilise and respond to sensitive information appropriately.
• Work collaboratively with the multi professional team to ensure patient’s needs are met.
• Maintain accurate legible and timely written/verbal/electronic reports which inform other members of the team, patients and their carers/relatives.
• Act as a patient advocate in promoting and delivering the highest standard of nursing care.
• Participate in the provision of out-of-hours specialist palliative care advice and 7 day working as per rota and operational policy.
• Work collaboratively with other professionals and agencies across Greater Manchester to ensure patient needs are met, especially in relation to on-going supportive & palliative care needs and discharge arrangements.
• To promote multi-disciplinary working across professional boundaries, to ensure seamless delivery of patient care and best practice.
• To be flexible to the changes within the Supportive Care Team and within the organisation.
• To maintain advanced communication skills.

Training & Education

• To evaluate palliative care & end of life teaching currently being carried out by the supportive care team, and to assess if any areas of palliative & end of life care are not being addressed.
• To audit current palliative and end of life care teaching, to help identify areas for improvement.
• To support the matrons, ward managers and clinical educators to coordinate palliative & end of life education.
• To promote the palliative care approach and facilitate the development of best practice and education within the Trust.
• To promote research/evidence based practice, audit (e.g. NACEL) and benchmark clinical outcomes to inform and participate in setting clinical standards ensuring that legislation, policies and procedures are applied correctly within own service.
• To contribute to the development of end of life care through participation in the identification and provision of training and development needs, providing on-going support and working with others to identify the effectiveness of service development against agreed criteria.
• To participate in the education of pre and post registered nurses, medical staff, AHP’s, patients and carers and participate in curriculum development where appropriate.
• Promote patient and public involvement to enhance service development.
• To influence the development of the supportive care strategy at the Trust.
• Provide evidenced based education, information and training for a range of disciplines both internally and externally to the organisation.
• Disseminate best practice through presentation at regional, national and international palliative care/oncology conferences.
• Be aware of current research associated with supportive and palliative care practice and utilise same in ensuring evidence-based practice at local level.
• Maintain up to date, high standards of palliative care skills and knowledge and maintain awareness of professional/national issues.

Professional Responsibilities

• Maintain own professional status and ensure that the NMC requirements for registration are met and adhered to.
• Ensure all relevant nursing policies, procedures and guidelines are adhered to.
• Participate in team and directorate meetings as required.
• Maintain a safe environment for yourself and others, taking reasonable care to avoid injury. Co-operate with the Trust to meet statutory requirements.
• Provide statements regarding untoward incidents, as requested by the Senior Nurse.
• Ensure all staff attend Trust mandatory training annually.
• Maintain registration and nursing competencies, and comply with the NMC Code of Professional Conduct, and related documents.
• Contribute to clinical governance and research & development initiatives.
• Support and contribute to the development of quality improvement strategies within the Supportive Care Team and contribute and effective use of physical and financial resources.
• Contribute to the writing of protocols relevant to specialist palliative, end of life and bereavement care.
• Promote patient and public involvement activities in the specialist area, leading to service improvement.
• Promote people’s equality, diversity and rights to shape appropriate service provision that is equitable and accessible.

This job description is an outline of the key tasks and responsibilities of the role and is not intended as an exhaustive list. The job will change over time to reflect the changing needs of the Trust and its services, as well as personal development needs of the post holder.

Applicant requirements

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.