Lead Neurodevelopmental Practitioner

Job overview

Are you passionate about improving the lives of children and young people with neurodevelopmental needs? Do you enjoy leading, inspiring and developing others while remaining clinically involved? If so, we would love to hear from you!

We are looking for an experienced Lead Neurodevelopmental Practitioner to join our Community Paediatric Service & provide compassionate, visible leadership across our neurodevelopmental pathway. In this role, you will shape & lead a skilled nursing and allied health workforce, ensuring children & families receive timely, high‑quality & evidence‑based care.

You will work closely with families, clinicians and partners, playing a key role in complex neurodevelopmental and diagnostic assessments, including ADOS. You will support and develop staff, drive service improvement, and contribute to governance, audit & quality initiatives that genuinely make a difference.

This is a varied and rewarding role where your clinical expertise, leadership skills and commitment to children with SEND will be valued and supported.

You will be a Registered Nurse or Allied Health Professional, educated to Master’s level or with equivalent experience with senior experience in community paediatrics or neurodevelopmental services.

Join us and help shape a service you can be proud of—where children, families and staff are at the heart of everything we do.

Should we receive a high number of applications, we reserve the right to close this vacancy at any point after 21 May

Main duties of the job

Independent prescribing and ADOS training are required or a willingness to work towards them.

The post holder will be responsible for the leadership and delivery of the skill mix Neuro-developmental model across Cambridgeshire. The leadership will require up to date development of all the nursing/allied health professional activity including independent prescribing and advanced nursing skills including diagnostic assessments. The post holder will lead on the training and development needs of the team to enable enhanced advanced nursing/allied health practice to grow.

The post holder will be responsible for the operational day to day management, and resource and ongoing development of the nursing/allied health team (including associated workforce) and provide effective leadership and clinical direction to the administrators to support operational delivery.

The post holder will act as an expert clinician and role model for the nursing/allied health team supporting delivery of an evidenced based commissioned service. The post holder will be working as part of a multi-disciplinary team to undertake assessment and management of children attending Community Paediatric Service.

Detailed job description and main responsibilities

Working closely with the Head of Service , Clinical Paediatrician and Nursing Lead, Nursing Team, Allied Health Professionals, Administrators and Community Paediatricians improve outcomes for children, their families through service redesign and integration with other providers across Cambridgeshire , ensuring the delivery of a high quality, efficient and effective service and ensure all objectives and key performance indicators are met.

The post holder will be instrumental in delivering improvements which are required of the service in light of meeting EEC organisational obligations for improving outcomes for Children and Young People who have Special Educational Needs and Disability (SEND). This will include actions which are developed as a result of local area inspections.

Main Duties and Responsibilities

As an autonomous and highly skilled practitioner provide highly specialised interventions for a defined caseload and advise colleagues on care for children and young people with complex needs.

Provide expert advice within and across professional boundaries and streamline children and young people care pathways between professionals/ system partners on the strategic planning and development of nursing/allied health workforce within the context of the whole service model.

Demonstrate the ability to act as a role model delivering the highest standard of clinical care without supervision whilst recognising own limitations to confidence and competence in order to influence standards of care delivered to patients.

The post holder will have a non-medical prescribing qualification if appropriate and will be expected to practice as a prescriber as part of this role if appropriate.

Participate in all aspects of the diagnostic assessments of children who have neurodisability for example ADOS assessments and provide training for other colleagues to do this.

Effectively manage the nursing/allied health team within community paediatric services

Provide effective clinical leadership and direction to the administrators on clinical matters.

Actively promote and be involved in developing practice through research linking policy, national strategy documents and best practice statements to promote best practice.

Develop clinical guidelines, protocols and standard operating procedures and patient information resources.

Lead on clinical audit to support the delivery of evidence based, safe effective care to children, young people and their families.

Design and deliver and evaluate training programmes for skill mix team.

Participate in quality visits/good practice visits using clinical expertise.

Support the governance by producing relevant reports and attend and present information to committees and groups.

Develop and maintain quality information, ensuring that this is available and reported in line with agreed timescales, both for internal and external stakeholders.

Assess and manage incidents, complaints and clinical risks.

Support the implementation of the compassion in practice agenda supporting the delivery of the values and behaviours of the 6C’s.

To attend all relevant mandatory training as and when required to do so.

Raise awareness about the importance of service provision for vulnerable children and young people with Special Educational Needs & Disabilities both within and external to the Trust

Protection of Children & Vulnerable Adults – To promote and safeguard the welfare of children, young people and vulnerable adults.

Implementation of NICE guidance and other statutory / best practice guidelines.

Infection Control - To be responsible for the prevention and control of infection.

To contribute to the identification, management and reduction of risk within the service.

To ensure day to day practice reflects the highest standards of governance, clinical effectiveness, safety and patient experience.

To ensure monitoring of quality and compliance with standards is demonstrable within the service on an ongoing basis.

To be aware of the responsibility of all employees to maintain a safe and healthy environment for patients/ clients, visitors and staff.

To support the Head of Service in the productivity and financial management of the clinical service.

To support the Clinical Lead  in ensuring that clinical services are delivered to a high standard of care and that all compliance requirements such as CQC, Ofsted and contractual requirements are achieved.

Communication

Communicate with children/ young people of all ages and their families/ carers who may: a)    Have a varying degree of complex developmental difficulties, neuro- disability or medical condition causing developmental disorder or delay e.g. ADHD/ ASD b)    May have complex needs where advanced communication skills are paramount c)    May be highly anxious or emotional due to news you are imparting

d)    Work in partnership with child/ young person and carers to enable them to make informed choices about care and treatment to promote their health and well- being

Use advanced communication skills to impart difficult or unwelcome news to patients and staff for example, complaints, patient experience, disciplinary, performance and grievance matters.

Demonstrate the ability to reconcile complex conflicting interests which may arise.

Influence decisions regarding service delivery through leading meetings, identification of barriers to change.

The post-holder will use well developed change management, communication and resilience skills to effect change within the service, understanding the complexities of change whilst also being able to deliver change.

To develop and maintain effective working relationships with clinical colleagues, within the service, division and the Trust.

Develop and maintain positive working relationships with key stakeholders both internally and externally.

Ensure clients and their carers/families are aware of the standards they would expect from the service.

Analyse and provide reports and decipher information from data and communicate this information where appropriate.

Budgetary Responsibility

Be an authorised signatory.

Orders stationery, maintain stock control

Works with Clinical Service to ensure financial targets are met.

Works with Head of Service and Clinical Leads to develop business cases and service level agreements for service   developments ensuring that the implications of service change or developments have been accurately assessed.

Participate in setting yearly income targets and expenditure budgets.