Lead Nurse of the Child and Adolescent Epilepsy Service

Detailed job description and main responsibilities

• Maintain clinical experience and provide expertise in the specialist area of Paediatric Epilepsy care to patients, families and professionals.
• Liaise with Leicestershire Education and Effectiveness Partnership (LEEP 1) to coordinate training for schools in CYP epilepsy including use of emergency medications and support development of epilepsy champions in schools.
• To provide a nurse-led review clinic to offer additional support to families/carers and consultant team.
• To lead the development of a working partnership with the Learning disability and Autism (LDA) collaborative of LLR ICB and plan for 6 joint clinics (alternate months) per year with specialist LD nurses.
• In collaboration with paediatric education leads, develop dedicated training specific to the Network and ensure a development training programme is in place for nurses and other professionals who may care for children requiring Paediatric Epilepsy Services.
• Develop dedicated guidance, SOPs and protocols in the Paediatric Epilepsy Service as relevant to the development of the Network.
• In conjunction with the wider Epilepsy Nurse Specialist team, work to ensure that transitions in care, for example, between childrens and adult services, are as seamless as possible and that information to support the experience of the whole transition process is accurate and readily available.
• Provide support to patients, their families and professionals around end of life care and unexpected death, working closely with the childrens and adult palliative care services. In particular, work to ensure a consistency of approach and management of expectations for this sometimes very unwell patient group.
• Work with parent/patient representatives and other health personnel to improve patients and families experience throughout their journey.
• Provide advice and clinical support during investigations into specific patient complaints where appropriate.
• Independently prescribe clinically relevant medication for therapeutic effectiveness, appropriate to patient needs and in accordance with evidence- based practice, national and practice protocols and within scope of practice to optimise treatment.
• Work with Data Analysts to coordinate the provision of local information, data and intelligence to support performance monitoring and the strategic development of the service e.g. key performance and quality indicators (Epilepsy 12 National Audit & Core20PLUS5)
• Work collaboratively to help lead the development and practice of audit, research and evidence-based paediatric nursing.
• Work with provider organisations to ensure that best-practice models of care are embedded.
• Advocate on behalf of parents and other service users to ensure high quality care is available and accessible to those who need it across the network.
• Take a whole system approach to ensure the delivery of safe and effective services across the patient pathway.
• Ensure the delivery, monitoring and future planning of Paediatric Epilepsy services are in line with National Standards, NICE guidance, and other relevant service specifications
• With the Epilepsy service Lead Clinician and Managers, develop a risk register to support risk management across the Network
• Support the management of robust clinical governance arrangements for the Network
• Support the development and implementation of Network protocols and standard operating procedures for Paediatric Epilepsy services. Work with shared-care organisations to ensure that best practice models of care are embedded
• Support the development and delivery of an annual audit programme.
• Support the reporting of incidents to the Network and sharing learning between and across organisations. To act as a champion for parent and carer representatives to understand system issues and develop improvement plans, embedding parents and public involvement in policy development and decision making across the Network(s)
• Support investigations into specific patient issues when appropriate.
• Work collaboratively with Paediatric Lead Nurses and Epilepsy Lead Nurses and other regional multi-disciplinary team to
• Achieve national goals and to share learning between Networks.
• Work with Managers and Lead Clinicians to ensure that patient safety is at the centre of patient service
• Ensure that within the service area, governance and risk management are seen to be everyones
• Support systems to record and monitor governance and risk information.
• Help make the case for resources where necessary for submission to the host Trust Management team and local specialist commissioners.
• Contribute to the production of an annual Governance Plan, including relevant clinical audit activity.
• Work with Data Analysts to promote clinical information for benchmarking and audit to improve the patient experience
• Be responsible for management leadership alongside the Lead Clinician, delivering the relevant standards through collaborative working with provider organisations and commissioners.
• Build strong relationships with key stakeholders in all centres across the Network.
• Support the General/Service Manager in producing:A communications strategy to include; engagement with relevant Strategic Clinical Networks, Academic Health Science Networks, charitable organisations, parent/family representatives and members of the public
• A strategy for engagement with children and young people, parents and carers. Provide regular monitoring and reporting on the implementation of a service user engagement strategy. Focus on improving cross-organisations multi-professional clinical engagement and patient/carer engagement to improve pathways of care
• Support the shared-care Trusts to deliver Paediatric Epilepsy Services through the sharing of information and the bringing together of people and ideas in order to effect improvements to the patient pathway.
• Enable the development of consistent provider guidance and improved service standards, in order to ensure a consistent patient/family experience.
• Work collaboratively with clinicians to ensure that patient pathways provide optimal use of limited epilepsy capacity
• Actively seek to participate in Network Educational events.
• Support the development of a Network Educational Strategy.
• Take responsibility for ensuring self and all staff comply with mandatory training and NMC professional re-registration requirements.
• Teach and assist others to develop professionally, reaching their full potential. Encourage professional accountability in others.
• Actively promote and participate in clinical supervision / mentorship or equivalent support mechanisms.
• Collaborate at an international and national level with paediatric and adolescent Epilepsy research and audit.
• The Epilepsy lead nurse will facilitate the involvement of all Epilepyt Specialist Nurses in audit and research relevant to their individual area of expertise and competence