Lead Nurse Critical Care

Job overview

Are you a dynamic and experienced critical care nurse ready to take the next step in your career?  Join our forward-thinking team as a Lead Nurse for Critical Care and play a pivotal role in shaping the future of high-acuity nursing care in adult critical care at UHBW.

Critical care in UHBW consists of a 4 bedded intensive care unit (ICU) in Weston General Hospital, 32 bedded general ICU in Bristol Royal Infirmary and a 23 bedded cardiac ICU in the Bristol Heart Institute.  The Lead Nurse for critical care oversees all adult critical care units, leading the way in developing the service further, building on its strengths with continuous improvement and innovation. The Lead Nurse uses clinical and leadership expertise to positively and sustainably influence the delivery of quality patient care, acting as a champion for the service within the Trust, the network, the region and beyond.

As Lead Nurse for Critical Care, you will be part of the divisional leadership team and will provide line management and professional accountability to the critical care matrons and the acute pain lead nurses. You will need a keen appreciation of how to ensure high standards of patient care, motivate complex and diverse teams, and articulate a genuine, achievable, ambitious vision for the future of critical care. You should understand the critical care speciality and the systems within which it functions, to meaningfully and productively engage with staff, patients and their families.

Main duties of the job

As a lead clinician, the post holder will work across Critical care UHBW (Bristol and Weston sites), to strengthen the input into improving clinical care and outcomes for critical care patients in a variety of clinical settings. The post holder will support the Director of Nursing in ensuring that patients receive high quality, compassionate patient centred care within the resources available within critical care services.   Working closely with the Clinical Director, Assistant General Manager and Deputy Divisional Director for Critical Care Services, the post holder will support and, where appropriate, lead service development. The post holder will lead cross divisional projects that enhance both patient and staff experience. They will provide clinical expertise and be a health educator, teacher and resource for multi-disciplinary teams. They will work across organisation and professional boundaries to bring about improvements in care and treatment outcomes. The post holder will line manage the Critical Care Matrons for General Intensive Care at Bristol, Intensive Care Unit Matron for Weston ICU, and Acute Pain Lead Nurses at Bristol and Weston, with professional leadership for the Cardiac Intensive Care Matron.  The current clinical project in development that will require oversight and direction from the post holder is the introduction of ECMO to UHBW Critical Care.

Detailed job description and main responsibilities

For a more detailed job description, main responsibilities, and Person Specification, please refer to the job description document attached to this vacancy.

(main duties contd)

In addition to the leadership role in the specialist area, the clinical lead will support and work with the Divisional Management Team and Chief Nurse team, focusing on the corporate strategic professional agenda. This may involve working on corporate professional issues and will involve acting as a clinical expert and senior role model. Depending upon experience and interests, it is anticipated that the post holder will spend part of the week working directly with clinical teams in a critical care services patient facing role.