Staff Nurse (Band 6) - Burdett Coutts Ward

Job overview

An exciting opportunity has arisen for a Band 6 staff nurse to join our friendly and energetic team on BC Ward.

Burdett Coutts ward is a male surgical ward, predominantly caring for patients undergoing treatment for colorectal, gastro-intestinal, and urological cancers.  However, we also care for a variety of medical patients including those having chemotherapy, radiotherapy and patients requiring symptom control.

You will be required to assume responsibility for co-ordinating shifts on a regular basis, support the Ward Sister with daily, weekly and monthly audits, support staff in their development, develop skills as a leader within the Trust. The successful candidate will have excellent interpersonal and clinical skills and enjoy working as part of a team.

We can offer you a supernumerary period designed to explore all that the ward has to offer, time allocated with members of the MDTs. We provide a tailor made programme to introduce you to the ward. Although oncology experience is desirable, we provide training via a dedicated Practice Educator in order for you to develop your oncology knowledge in addition to developing your leadership and ward management skills. We offer opportunities for further education with the Royal Marsden School.

Our ward commitment is to meet the Trust’s goals of excellence in caring for our patients, their families and friends with professionalism, respect, and dignity. We are an inclusive team and would welcome your application.

Main duties of the job

• To coordinate and supervise a shift, communicating effectively with members of a multidisciplinary team to deliver high quality, evidence-led care to patients.
• To exercise clinical judgment and decision making about patient needs in terms of long term goals or plans.
• To participate fully in the day to day organization and running of clinical trials including the recruitment, education and monitoring of patients entering a clinical trial and liaison as required with trial sponsors

Detailed job description and main responsibilities

For further information on this role, please see the attached detailed Job Description and Person Specification

To complete the first level assessment of patients with cancer and their families to gain an understanding of their physiological, psycho-social, spiritual and cultural needs and to develop a positive, realistic and supportive attitude to ensure that these needs are met. This will include:

• Counterchecking patients’ vital signs, blood results, patient body surface area, chemotherapy prescription and consent before administration of treatment.
• Educating patients on their treatment such as indications and side effects.
• Ensuring necessary medication and follow up appointments are obtained.
• To plan, document, deliver and evaluate care plans from admission through to discharge / transfer discussing this with the patient, their family and multi-disciplinary teams and to alert the Sister/Charge Nurse of any changes. To set goals for each of the identified nursing issues and encourage / teach other nursing staff to do the same. To help the patient achieve set goals through care planning.