Specialist Paediatric HEF Dietitian

Job overview

An exciting opportunity has arisen for an enthusiastic dietitian with excellent communication skills to join our small team of Community Dietitians providing a service to patients across three geographic areas.

Based in Plymouth the successful applicant will manage a home enteral feeding caseload of paediatric patients in domiciliary setting. The post holder will need to have broad dietetic experience across a range of clinical conditions and extensive paediatric experience. The community team is part of the University Hospitals Plymouth NHS Trust Dietetic Department which provides services to Derriford Hospital and an extensive community area. The department has close links with the Peninsula Medical School and the dietetics course at Plymouth University. All staff are involved in student dietitian training providing A, B and C placements and participate in the training of medical students and other health care professionals.

***Preference will be given to internal Trust staff, as well as ‘Priority’ and 'At Risk' status including NHS At Risk staff throughout Devon who are able to display recent relevant experience as dictated by the Person Specification.***

Main duties of the job

• The postholder manages own caseload of paediatric HEF patients within their home setting including residential homes/schools and day centres.
• Working as an autonomous Nutrition and Dietetics practitioner, providing dietetic treatment and advice for a diverse and complex caseload of infants and children as required
• To deliver specialist dietetic clinical care to paediatric patients requiring home enteral tube feeding within Plymouth Hospitals NHS Trust and the community it serves whilst working to the Dietitians' Professional Code of Conduct. This post is part of the Nutrition and Dietetic Department Derriford Hospital, based in the community at Estover Health Centre The Nutrition and Dietetic Department has 44.19 W.T.E. staff with departmental contacts approximately 24,000 per year across acute and community ***Preference will be given to internal Trust staff, as well as ‘Priority’ and 'At Risk' status including NHS At Risk staff throughout Devon who are able to display recent relevant experience as dictated by the Person Specification.***
• This post is part of the Nutrition and Dietetic Department Derriford Hospital, based in the community at Estover Health Centre
• The Nutrition and Dietetic Department has 44.19 W.T.E. staff with departmental contacts approximately 24,000 per year across acute and community

Detailed job description and main responsibilities

• To be professionally responsible and accountable for the management of own clinical caseload and to organise this effectively with regards to clinical priority and effective use of time in a variety of settings.
• To work autonomously to provide highly complex advice to paediatric patients with highly complex medical and surgical conditions that are reliant on artificial nutrition support in the community. This will involve nutritional assessment (based on interpretation of biochemistry, anthropometry, clinical condition and dietary history) and development of nutritional care plans which are both realistic, practical and evidence based (based on assessment of medical, social, economic, cultural and psychological factors).
• To manage and be responsible for an individual caseload of paediatric patients with a wide range of medical, neurological, physical, social and emotional needs, including life limiting and degenerative conditions in an outpatient setting.
• To assess and interpret the medical diagnoses and changes in medical conditions and treatment plans of individual patients requiring artificial nutrition support and understand how it affects nutritional management.
• To formulate feeding regimens based on medical condition, fluid management, biochemical and anthropometric monitoring. o To have an awareness of tube site complications and to alert appropriate health care professionals to these complications if detected.
• To respond to urgent complex problems with enteral feeding tubes e.g accidental removal or blockages. Where possible to arrange emergency replacement of balloon retained gastrostomy devices or emergency assistance to clear blocked enteral feeding tubes in order to prevent hospital admissions.
• To provide training to patients and carers alongside nutrition nurses on the correct procedures of care for their enteral feeding tube.
• To maintain knowledge and awareness of guidelines for correct administration of medicines via enteral feeding tubes and where appropriate to liaise with the medicines management pharmacist for patient medication review.
• To attend relevant multidisciplinary meetings in order to provide expert advice to clinicians regarding provision of appropriate nutrition support interventions based on clinical evidence.
• To communicate effectively with patients and carers to maximise condition management, recovery potential, further disease prevention and during terminal care.
• For further details please see the attached JD & PS.

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.