Named Doctor for Children in Care

This postholder will hold the statutory role of Named Doctor for Children in Care (Looked After Children) on behalf of Alder Hey Children\’s NHS Foundation Trust. Named Doctors have a key role in promoting good professional practice within their organisation, providing advice and expertise for fellow professionals, and ensuring robust arrangements are in place. The role of Named Doctor for Children in Care moves beyond generic care to a higher level of operational expertise achievable through extensive experience and a higher level of education.

Responsibilities

• Develop strong internal Children in Care policies, guidelines, and protocols.
• Ensure that Children in Care are reflected and considered across the organisation.
• Support the management and quality assurance of statutory health assessments.
• Improve the health outcomes for Children in Care and Care Leavers by working with the individual, their carers, the corporate family, and the wider community to affect change via innovative practice and collaborative working.
• Stimulate the awareness of the health needs of this client group, influencing policies that affect health and the facilitation of health enhancing activities.
• Effectively communicate Children in Care knowledge, research and findings from audits, challenge poor practice and address areas where there is an identified training/development opportunity.
• Facilitate and contribute to internal and multi-agency audits, and statutory inspections.
• Conduct Children in Care training needs analysis, and to commission, plan, design, deliver and evaluate single and inter-agency training and teaching for staff within the Trust.
• Support the delivery of Initial Health Assessment (IHA) clinics and work with the Named Nurse to ensure continuous quality improvement. Provide specialist advice and supervision to staff who have direct contact with Children in Care and Care Leavers.

Alder Hey context

As one of Europe\\\’s biggest and busiest children\\\’s hospitals, Alder Hey Children\\\’s NHS Foundation Trust treats everything from common illnesses to highly complex and specialist conditions. In addition to our main hospital site, we offer paediatric services at a number of community sites and hold local clinics across Merseyside, Cumbria, Shropshire, Wales and the Isle of Man. We also provide specialist inpatient care for children with complex mental health needs in our recently relocated and newly opened state of the art facility. Alder Hey has a thriving research portfolio and leads research into children\\\’s medicines, infection, inflammation and oncology. We are becoming recognised as one of the world\\\’s leaders in children\\\’s healthcare and research. We contribute to public health, lead cutting-edge research and teach the next generation of children\\\’s specialists. Alongside this is our Innovation Hub, a dedicated space where clinicians and industries can come together to create new products and technologies. We know that a children\\\’s hospital is different and that our job is more than just treating an illness. To us, every child is an individual. As well as giving them the very best care, we set out to make them feel happy, safe and confident as they play, learn and grow. At Alder Hey we are here to look after a child and their family and that includes mums, dads, brothers and sisters.