Speciality Nurse for Dermatology

Detailed job description and main responsibilities

Key Result Areas:
Expertise & Excellence in Clinical Practice

Contribute to the delivery of evidence-based personalised and
compassionate care which places quality at the heart of specialist practice.
Care will be responsive to individual needs and reflect current local protocols and national guidelines.

Act as an accessible professional for the multi-disciplinary team (MDT)
supporting the management of a clinical caseload which is 80%-100% of
the role. This will necessitate a degree of autonomy and advocacy to ensure the delivery of appropriate care.

Contribute to the management of a caseload of patients within speciality
and prioritise workload to meet patient and service need.

Use knowledge of the speciality and treatment to support the development
of personalised care pathways for individuals and assist with holistic needs
assessment, planning and evaluation of care and all care interventions.

Act as a patient advocate to facilitate the process of shared decision making in respect to health, choice of treatment and care. Use interpersonal and communication skills where there may be significant barriers in order to build confidence. Ensure that patients’ individual needs are expressed and valued, and individual care plans are understood.

Advise on disease and symptom management for patients within the
speciality in both inpatient and outpatient settings. Evaluate response to
interventions and cascade to relevant colleagues.

Support patients to self-manage their condition where deemed appropriate. Provide education for those who will need guided support to self-manage and those who will need ongoing face to face support.

Assist in the development and delivery of nurse led or parallel clinics in line
with National guidance and local service need.

Act as a resource providing specialist advice and support across service
boundaries to ensure optimum liaison and co-ordination of care.

Undertake clinical competencies relevant to this specialist service to
demonstrate expertise in extended nursing roles. Assess and assist in
managing individual psychological reactions to diagnosis, treatment and
associated side effects.

Management & Leadership

Act as a role model demonstrating high standards of holistic care and
provide clinical leadership to others across the organisation.

Provide support to ensure public and patient involvement is embedded
within the sphere of practice.

Participate in the recruitment and selection of staff where required.

Assist in setting measurable outcomes for the service and continuous
evaluation of practice supporting changes where necessary.

Contribute to the clinical governance agenda.

Participate in operational and strategic planning for the development and
delivery of the specialist service. Support service improvement activities.

Attend Trust senior nurse meetings and contribute to the agenda and
strategic nursing vision.

Represent the Trust by contributing to and participating in meetings locally,
regional and nationally relating to the speciality.

Contribute to an annual service review, gathering information to support the annual report.

Assist with complaint investigation and ensure appropriate escalation.

Communication

Take personal responsibility for ensuring effective communication between
all service providers.

Act as a role model for excellent communication skills.

Demonstrate empathetic interpersonal and communication skills in
supporting, informing and advising patients and carers through diagnosis,
treatment, disease progression, prognosis and supportive and palliative
care where applicable. This will involve occasionally imparting significant
news or supporting patients and carers during and following such
consultations.

Effectively and sensitively communicate complex and sensitive information
to emotionally distressed patients and family/carers at key points along the
care pathway on a frequent basis.

Refer to other health professionals and outside agencies to ensure optimum care and ongoing support for individual patients/carers, and to ensure the seamless transition from primary to secondary care appropriate to patients’ individual needs and circumstance.

Maintain links with local and national organisations, which support the care
of patients within this speciality.

Education

Identify and use educational strategies to deliver information to patients and carers.

Participate in the development of patient focused education including
training to support self-management and health promotion activities.

Assist in the development of other professionals by contributing to Trust
wide specialist education and training.

Support the delivery of formal and informal teaching initiatives as part of the Trust’s education strategy as agreed with the appropriate senior nurse to ensure practice development, staff empowerment and improved care for
patients.

Act as a mentor/clinical supervisor as appropriate.

Take personal responsibility for life-long learning and personal development through clinical supervision and appraisal. Actively engages with learning and development opportunities needed to work as an advancing practitioner and take appropriate action to ensure these needs are met.

Quality, Audit, Innovation and Research

Assist in the development of written patient information and use existing
appropriate resources to inform users, according to individually assessed
need.

Work within the NMC code of professional conduct.

Contribute to the development of policies and clinical guidelines to support
the specialist service.

Collaborate with other MDT members to develop and update multiprofessional Trust operational policies and guidelines.

Maintain patient records and ensure an effective documentation system to
reflect the activity and delivery of specialist nursing care.

Promote the service where applicable.

Use creative reasoning, experience and vision to support advancement of
care.

Develop new skills in response to emerging knowledge and techniques.

Supports management of change as required.

Maintain membership and attendance at national and local forums to
network and debate issues to inform the specialist nursing role and service
delivery where applicable.

Assist with the collation of data to provide evidence of productivity,
outcomes and quality through audit and research.

Contribute to the identification of patients eligible for trial entry. Provide
support to patients considering entry to clinical trials in relation to informed consent and advocacy.

Participate in clinical research relevant to practice area.

Assist in the development of links and system to seek the views of patient
and carers to ensure service development is in line with user need.

Additional Responsibilities for specialty

As per the British Dermatological Nursing Group a band 6 nurse is expected to work within the outlined scope of practice. 

Clinical

Making clinical decisions for a defined patient group.

May be an independent prescriber for a defined patient group or
undertaking medicines management including use of a patient group
direction (PGD).

As per band 5 role frequently without close direction.
- Phototherapy
- Wound-care
- Assisting surgery
- General advice and support to patients / families / carers
- Administration of medicines
- Patch testing
- Treatment counselling
- Topical treatment / bandaging
- Camouflage advice
- Iontophoresis

Lower risk, less invasive skin surgery procedures

Photodynamic therapy

Disease or therapy focused nurse led follow up clinics with protocol
e.g. wound care, biologics, isotretinoin

Leadership
Leader of a small team

Showing initiative in change management

Active participant in quality improvement projects

Education

Formal teaching sessions for other staff within the organisation

Involvement in patient /public information initiatives

Research

Aware of the literature around practice

Using literature to inform practice

Aware of literature searching and reviewing

Undertaking audit