Specialist Paediatric Dietitian

Job summary

NHS Band 6 Salary: £39,959 - £48,117 per annum

Contract Type: Permanent

Hours Per Week: Full time 37.5 hours

This post is full time, but consideration will be given to applicants requiring part time work.

We are looking for an enthusiastic dietitian to join our supportive, friendly and flexible paediatric team.

If you have some experience of paediatrics and are looking to expand your knowledge and skills in a busy district general hospital or are looking for a change and would like to gain experience in paediatric dietetics this may be the opportunity you are looking for.

We are looking for a dietitian who wants to learn and showcase the benefits dietitians can bring to patients, their families and to our colleagues. You should have excellent communication skills, show a commitment to team working and innovation, and be able to demonstrate the ability to work within a busy environment. This post would suit either someone with experience in Paediatrics looking to further consolidate their knowledge and skills.

Main duties of the job

Specific Core Functions

• To provide expert advice on paediatric education which involves nutritional diagnosis (interpretation and analysis of biochemistry, anthropometrics, social situation, clinical condition, drug and diet history) and the development of treatment plans (calculation of nutritional requirements and client centred goals).
• To be responsible for the development, implementation and ongoing provision of a high quality evidenced based effective dietetic service to clinical areas including allergy, oncology, gastroenterology, nutritional support (parenteral, enteral and oral), neurodisability and metabolic conditions, alongside your dietetic colleagues.
• To manage and prioritise own workload and work within professional code of conduct and assist administration staff in doing this.
• To initiate and participate in research and audit projects within paediatrics in order to provide a clinically effective service providing feedback on these locally and publishing or presenting relevant findings at governance meetings and conferences.
• Communicate highly sensitive and complex information with empathy ensuring that information is understood.
• Communicating and co-operating with other wards and departments, promoting and maintaining good working relationships within paediatric dietetics and across the organisation, giving accurate information as required and keeping everyone informed of any untoward incidents.

About us

Here at Portsmouth Hospitals University NHS Trust, we are proud to provide expert, compassionate care for our local population. We are ranked as the third in the country for research, embedding education and training across the organisation. Our main hub is the Queen Alexandra Hospital, which is one of the largest hospitals on the south coast employing over 8,700 staff.

Our patients come from all walks of life and so do we. We hire great people from a wide variety of backgrounds because it makes our hospital stronger. If you share our values and our enthusiasm for getting it right for patients, colleagues, and our community, you will find a home at Portsmouth Hospitals University NHS Trust.

The health and wellbeing of our staff is at the forefront of everything we do. We are proud to be able to offer our staff some fantastic benefits including our on-site Nursery, access to our free Beach Hut for those long summer days, our on-site Wellness Centre including a gym and a swimming pool, access to our fantastic staff networks including LGBTQ, Race Equality and DisAbility, and awards ceremonies to recognise your achievements. We believe we can offer support to all of our staff when they need it the most.

We welcome the unique contributions that you can bring in terms of your education, opinions, culture, ethnicity, race, sex, gender identity and expression, nation of origin, age, languages spoken, veterans' status, colour, religion, disability, sexual orientation, and beliefs.

Details

• Date posted: 24 August 2026
• Pay scheme: Agenda for change
• Band: Band 6
• Salary: £39,959 to £48,117 a year
• Contract: Permanent
• Working pattern: Full-time
• Reference number: REF2553Y
• Job locations: Queen Alexandra Hospital, Southwick Hill Road, Portsmouth, Hampshire, PO6 3LY, United Kingdom

Job responsibilities

Portsmouth Dietitians are a friendly and supportive team of 30 dietitians and support staff providing acute and community dietetics to adults and children across the Portsmouth and Southeast Hampshire Area. We cover a large university hospital, a number of smaller community hospitals and provide outpatient activity across a variety of settings.

We pride ourselves on our supportive culture and offer development opportunities to internally develop our staff to enable them to progress in their career aspirations.

We train student dietitians from University of Surrey and University of Winchester.

The main duties of the role are varied and include providing dietetic cover to the 2 children's wards, providing cover to outpatient clinics for a range of clinical conditions including gastroenterology, neurodisability, weight management, nutrition support, allergy and enteral tube feeding, managing a caseload of community patients on home enteral feeding and providing telephone advice to a range of different health professionals.

Key Responsibilities

• To attend appropriate ward rounds, multidisciplinary meetings and case conferences within specialist areas proving expert advice based on clinical evidence with consideration of social and psychological factors.
• To manage a case load of children with complex needs who might be on home enteral feeds or requiring blended diets.
• To manage busy outpatient clinics where the caseload is varied, liaising when necessary, with health visitors, social care and school nursing team.
• To judge level of patient and carer understanding adjusting information provided accordingly and to communicate with tact, empathy and understanding where information provided is unwelcome or difficult to accept e.g. long term adherence to a restricted diet.
• To independently provide specialist, evidence-based nutritional assessment/treatment within specialist areas, potentially involving a wide range of disease/conditions, using advanced clinical reasoning and theoretical knowledge of relevant physiology and pathology.
• To work with the childrens community nurses and special needs school nurses for those patients requiring artificial nutritional support in the community.
• To act autonomously assessing degree of risk and taking appropriate action to ensure patient safety and quality of care.
• To communicate accurate information regarding patients to a wide range of health care professionals within and outside of the trust and keep statistics and written records of all in patient and outpatient contacts in accordance with trust and departmental standards.
• To represent the dietetic service at a strategic and operational level as required by paediatric Team lead and Dietetic manager.
• Actively contribute to achieving the clinical governance goals/targets set by the trust and department and comply with reporting schedules for monitoring and reporting on clinical outcomes.
• Promote the health and well-being of staff, patients and their carers.
• Comply and promote compliance with Trust policies and guidelines e.g. Health and Safety, Clinical Risk and Infection Control.
• Contribute to the department pay and non-pay budgets to ensuring good housekeeping and economic use of resources.

If you are interested in finding out more about this role then we would love to hear from you.

For full job details and person specification, please refer to enclosed Job Description.

UK Registration

Applicants must have current UK professional registration. For further information please see NHS Careers website (opens in a new window).