Joint Lead Acute Nutrition Support Dietitian

Detailed job description and main responsibilities

Responsibility for patients

• As an autonomous practitioner to accept clinical responsibility for a designated caseload of highly complex acute inpatients demonstrating clinical specialisation and expertise.
• To organise clinical role effectively and efficiently with regard to clinical priorities, use of time and appropriate opportunities to delegate work to members if the team.
• To be professional and legally responsible and accountable for all aspects of own work including the assessment and management of clinical risk for assessment and treatment modalities / interventions with own patients.
• To ensure the highest standards of clinical care are achieved and support junior staff to do likewise.
• To assess the patient’s capacity and understanding of treatment options, gain valid informed consent and have the ability to work within a legal framework with patients who lack capacity to consent to treatment.
• To undertake highly specialist nutritional assessment using specialist investigative and analytical skills including the interpretation of biochemistry, anthropometric and clinical parameters, including medication, and carrying out highly complex specialised nutritional calculations.
• To formulate individualised management and treatment plans, using highly developed clinical reasoning, and utilising a wide range of highly specialist treatment skills and options to formulate a specialised programme of care including recommending the prescription of feeds and supplements.
• To produce / revise treatment plans within a range of complex dietetic problems which require investigation, analysing and assessing.
• To maintain up-to-date clinical knowledge of specialised prescribable dietetic products and medication to include drug-nutrient interactions and enteral feeding pump technology.
• To have specialist communication skills and demonstrate these on a continual basis with patients and carers where needs are highly complex, sensitive, distressing or where patients / carers have barriers to communication.

To communicate effectively and work collaboratively with medical, nursing and therapy colleagues to ensure delivery of a co-ordinated multidisciplinary service. This will include attending / leading case conferences and ensuring patients are discharged with the necessary equipment / adequate supplies of supplements.

• To provide highly specialist advice, teaching and training to dietetic colleagues, nursing and medical staff, other MDT members and students, regarding the management of inpatients.
• To develop high-quality, evidence-based patient information resources according to Trust policy
• To support undergraduate dietetic students and dietetic apprentices within the Trust

Responsibility for policy and service development

• To demonstrate a sound understanding of and adhere to all aspects of clinical governance within the Trust e.g. implementation of evidence-based practice, outcome measures, activities and personal development
• To comply with all organisational departmental policies and procedures and to be involved in the reviewing and updating of them as needed
• To maintain accurate, comprehensive and up-to-date documentation, in line with legal and departmental requirements and communicate assessment and treatment results to the appropriate disciplines in the form of reports and letters

Responsibility for financial and physical resources

• To take an active role in managing dietary resources and ensuring appropriate resources are available to meet the demands of the service.
• To comply with departmental and organisational policies and procedures relating to the management and protection of physical and financial assets

Responsibility for staff

• To support undergraduate dietetic students within the Trust.
• To take a role in conjunction with the Student Dietitian placement facilitators in the organisation and training of undergraduate dietetics students.
• To provide clinical leadership to acute dietetic personnel

• To meet the Dietetic Manager regularly to receive management supervision and to review the acute service and identify areas for development and improvement
• To ensure acute team staff (direct reports) participate in induction, probation and appraisal programmes, to ensure staff remain compliant with statutory and mandatory training
• To monitor staff sickness absence and manage staff sickness according to policy
• To delegate fairly and manage effectively the acute caseload within the capacity of the service, escalate appropriately to the Dietetic Manager
• To jointly supervise the professional development of agreed acute dietetic staff with the Dietetic Manager. This will involve the organisation of induction and training programmes, undertaking appraisals, clinical supervision and mentoring staff through external courses.
• To provide clinical supervision, training and support for acute dietetic staff and assist in their professional development.

Responsibility for Information Resources

• To develop high quality evidence-based patient information and resources according to Trust Policy.
• To fully comply with information governance policies and procedures and adhere to all data protection rules

Responsibility for Research and Development

• In conjunction with the Dietetic Manager to ensure that audit and research is driven forward in the acute setting working constructively and collaboratively with MDT colleagues, ensuring Trust Policy is followed and that recommendations are implemented and embedded into practice.
• To undertake the measurement and evaluation of own work and current practices through the use of evidence-based practice projects, audit and outcome measures. To make recommendations for change and ensure full implementation.
• To develop, co-ordinate and deliver training in the acute setting to ensure effective use of established outcome measures and to investigate future measures as appropriate.
• To act as a specialist resource regarding acute dietetic patient care for colleagues of all disciplines, through awareness of current research and evidence and disseminating this through informal discussion and formal presentations.
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Planning and organisational skills

• To take the lead in organising ward allocations and work distribution within the Acute Team.

Professional

• To fulfil the requirements of the Health and Care Professions Council for professional practice.
• To participate in appraisal and comply with the Personal Development Plan.
• To be responsible for demonstrating own competency to practice at a highly specialist level through maintaining a portfolio which reflects Continuing Professional Development activities and personal development.
• To demonstrate a sound understanding of and adhere to all aspects of Clinical Governance within the Trust, e.g. implementation 

Physical effort

• The role requires both ward and desk-based activities including general PC use and consultations in both ward and clinic room settings
• The post holder may need to travel in the course of carrying out duties

Mental effort

• The post-holder will need to demonstrate active listening and process complex clinical information during the day-to-day assessment and advising of patients with specialist medical conditions

Emotional effort

• The post-holder will frequently (several times per week) deal both directly and indirectly with distressing and emotionally demanding clinical scenarios. For example, when supporting patients receiving ‘bad news’ and/or during the terminal phase of their illness
• The post-holder will provide professional and pastoral support to the members of the acute team

Working conditions

• The job sometimes involves exposure to unpleasant working conditions e.g. vomit, urine, diarrhoea, physical or verbal abuse.
• The job requires that the post holder will work on site at Dorset County Hospital