Palliative Care Nursing Assistant

Job overview

Various hours considered, to work within the Palliative Care Support Team based in Northumberland. We are looking to recruit on a permanent basis, motivated and enthusiastic Nursing Assistant to join this well-established team in providing excellent supportive personalised care.

The team is based in Morpeth NHS Centre delivering care to all patients who are registered with a GP in Northumberland; therefore the successful applicant must be able to fulfil the transport requirements of the post including at times of inclement or bad weather.

The successful candidate will work as part of the Palliative Care Support Team to deliver compassionate care and demonstrating kindness to patients at end of life and their families in their own homes.

The Team’s primary function is to support patients with a palliative condition in the last few weeks/months of life. The Team provides a home visiting service delivering care and support for both patients and relatives.

We are looking for someone with excellent communication skills who can liaise with the wider MDT, patients, and relatives about emotive and difficult conversations. Both verbal and written communication must be of the highest standard.

The successful candidate should have a problem-solving approach to complex situations, remaining calm and reassuring during difficult times.

Please note we reserve the right to close this vacancy prior to the closing date once the required number of suitable applications have been received.

Main duties of the job

• Provide care as planned by the District Nurse or Macmillan Nurse for patients with palliative care needs and or at the end of life.
• Monitor patient’s condition during a visit or shift and report accurately any change or deterioration to either the Team Lead, District Nurse or Out of hours nurses.
• Deal with highly distressing situations when a patient dies during a visit or shift following Trust policies for the confirmation of expected death out of hours and reporting appropriately during office hours.
• Provide family and carers with emotional, physical and spiritual support during planned interventions.
• Provide nutrition to patients presenting food and fluid in an acceptable way depending on patient’s needs and capabilities.
• Provide patient’s mouth care regimes to maintain a healthy mouth and patient comfort.
• Provide the hands-on support and care to patients. You should have a willingness and passion to provide high quality, essential nursing care to ensure comfort and support to our patients and families.
• Contribute to and works with team to provide high-quality service to patients and carers requiring care & support in the end stages of life.
• Support patients and carers to manage disability, loss and change.
• Use equipment appropriately, once trained in the use and care of simple equipment.
• Record care in patients care plans in the electronic patient record (System One) and demonstrate high standards of record keeping.

Detailed job description and main responsibilities

We are looking for applicants who have excellent communication skills, who work well as part of a team and have a flexible adaptable approach to meet the care needs of a broad range of patients. The post will require you to work unsocial hours, weekends and Bank Holidays providing a service 365 days of the year working a 2 shift pattern of days and evenings. Working alongside the Senior Community Nurse for the service, the District Nursing service and Specialist Palliative Service you will be able to undertake support worker duties to an exceptionally high standard.

Please note, it is an essential requirement of the role that the post holder has a valid driving licence and is either a car owner and able to use the car for work purposes, or has a Trust personal lease vehicle which may be used for the role. However, the Trust would consider making reasonable adjustments to the role, if necessary, to enable a disabled person to undertake the role.

The successful post holder must be able to role model compassionate and inclusive leadership in order to shape the creation of a collective leadership culture within the Trust.

Applicant requirements

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.