Palliative & End of Life Care Lead Nurse

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Leadership / Managerial

·      The Palliative and EOLC Lead Nurse plays a strategic leadership role in ensuring and consistently developing a high quality, specialist palliative and EOLC service and workforce across the Trust.  Relationships with the Divisional Nurses and the Trust Heads of Nursing and divisional Directors, colleagues in the EOLC oversight group and local commissioners are particularly important in delivering this role

·      The post holder will be an integral part of the Trust’s senior nursing structure providing strategic leadership for specialist palliative and EOLC.  Leading a Trust wide specialist palliative and EOLC strategy and liaising and building strong working relationships with key members of the team both within the Trust and externally including hospices/charitable organisations

·      Lead on the delivery of national Ambitions for Palliative and EOLC, NICE guidance and CQC requirements for EOLC

·      Provide clinical leadership for collaborative projects in palliative and EOLC with local hospice organisations and community services providers.

·      Act as a role model demonstrating high standards of holistic care and provide clinical leadership in relevant clinical areas to medical and nursing staff

·      Reflect on own practice through clinical supervision / mentorship and to develop skills as a clinical supervisor / mentor to others

·      Reporting of all data relevant to their specialist area to Divisional Board and highlighting and recording any concerns on the risk register and through governance structures.

Clinical

·      Act as a specialist practitioner and expert resource for patients with palliative and EOLC needs, their families and other healthcare professionals, across all health care boundaries

·      Provide strong clinical leadership skills, motivating, inspiring and empowering others in pursuit of a shared vision to ensure the effective provision of patient care and management of palliative and EOLC services

·      Ensure care delivery is in line with the regulatory body code of practice (Nursing and Midwifery Council (NMC)) and ensure a quality-orientated approach to care which recognises the needs and views of patients and carers and places the patient at the centre of all activities.

·      Ensure clinical skills are maintained and updated to provide consistent and quality care, and maintain own professional development

·      Lead in the development of guidelines and protocols, recognising the need for any further role extension to provide vision and innovation regarding new developments and guidelines to practice

·      Be aware of and utilise research, to provide effective care and acknowledge its implications on practice

·      Where required, will consider making safeguarding and deprivation of liberty referrals following discussion with medical and nursing staff

·      Provide professional support and support in the provision of supervision to the Clinical Nurse specialists in palliative care

·      Continually evaluate and feedback to the Trust the added value of the role in relation to the patients journey and experiences

·      Act as a role model, promoting the standards of care and behaviour expected and as a resource/adviser to all staff in order to maximise opportunities to improve cancer nursing care and the environment to which care is delivered, by maintaining a highly visible profile and through regular contact with Senior Nurses, Nursing & Clinical and Therapeutic Leads, patients and their families through patient and user forums

Governance (Information and reporting)

·        Lead on Clinical Governance and its requirements as well as Trust guidelines and policies and reporting to Divisional Board.

·        Ensure that the national measures of care are met.

·        Lead on clinical audit in specialist palliative care and EOLC in line with NICE guidance and the National Audit for Care at the End of Life (NACEL), and lead on improving and developing EOLC considering audit findings

·        Be pro-active when dealing with potential complainants, resolving issues where possible before they become formal complaints.  However, where necessary refer on to appropriate persons in line with Trust guidelines

·        Lead and support in incident investigation and root cause analysis

·        Work in collaboration with the quality and patient safety teams working towards improving patient safety focussing on continuous learning and improvement in its efforts to reduce the risk of harm to people while they use healthcare

Service Development and Improvement

·      Lead on the delivery of quality improvement initiatives for palliative and EOLC including advance care planning, Priorities for Care in the last days of life, Compassionate Companion volunteer service, ward accreditation for the EOLC quality standards – GSF.

·      Participate actively in the development and configuration of services within the Trust through the Palliative and EOLC steering group

·      Work with the General & Specialist Medicine management team and directorate Clinical Leads, Specialty Managers and Senior Nurses to further develop palliative and EOLC services

·      Proactively contribute to the long-term strategies of Palliative and EOLC across the Trust, including promoting new initiatives and plans

·      Be responsible for the effective development of palliative and EOLC services ensuring they are responsive to patient/carer needs across the Trust

·      Generate solutions within own and others’ practice to enhance care and treatment

·      Use effective change management skills to initiate and implement service and practice developments.

·      Take a lead in clinical education and development of appropriate staff involved in the care and support of patients with palliative and EOLC needs. Lead on the ‘essential training’ for EOLC (review and evaluation) and lead on the provision of palliative and EOLC training

·      To review the existing staffing provision for specialist palliative care, creating a vision for the appropriate staffing structure and working with divisions to implement this

·      Contribute proactively to directorate cost improvement plans, making best use of resources available

Communications and Engagement

·      Demonstrate an ability to use advanced communication skills

·      Maintain appropriate channels and styles of communication to meet the needs of patients, relatives and carers, managers, peers and other professions/agencies

·      Lead the patient and family feedback initiatives for palliative and EOLC. Ensure patients/users views are included in the decision-making process for service developments.

·      Work closely with the Patient Experience Team to develop strategies that establish an integrated approach to user involvement in the planning and implementation of all aspects of palliative and EOLC service development

·      Disseminate and share best practice at local, regional and national level by conference presentation and through publication

Professional Responsibilities

·      Develop and maintain high standards of care, always ensuring safe practice and to work within the NMC (Nursing and Midwifery Council) Code of Professional Conduct and NMC: Standards of Conduct, Performance and Ethics for Nurses

·      Act in a supportive, informative and sensitive manner towards patients, relatives, visitors and colleagues at all times

·      Ensure confidentiality relating to patient, staff and all information is maintained

·      Maintain professional and personal growth by acknowledging learning needs through IPR, Personal Development Plan (PDP) and Clinical Supervision