Registered Nurse IPU in Chelmsford

Are you a motivated, forward thinking, talented individual interested in delivering excellent specialist palliative care within a multidisciplinary team to patients and their families within mid Essex? Farleigh Hospice is the leading specialist palliative care provider in mid Essex, providing specialist support to patients and their families in both the community via our multidisciplinary locality care teams, and our inpatient unit.

Main duties of the job:

• We are looking for highly motivated Registered Nurses to join our specialist Inpatient Unit Nursing Team; with the introduction of a new skill mix in staff developed to meet the increasing complexities of patient needs.
• The 10-bed unit provides holistic care for patients with both malignant and non-malignant life limiting illnesses and their families/carers. This includes excellent symptom control, psycho-social and spiritual support for patients and end of life care; we are also aspiring to provide care for patients with complex nursing needs such as non-invasive ventilation.

As an organisation with a strong social purpose, we understand the strength we gain from having and supporting diverse teams. The different skills and experiences that colleagues from different backgrounds bring to us allow us to make better decisions, consider different views and be an altogether more interesting and cohesive place to work. We welcome applications from everyone.

This post involves working on a 7-day week rota.

About us:

As an organisation keen to develop and retain our staff, we will provide successful candidates at all levels with:

• Bespoke induction
• Principles of Palliative Care course
• Access to educational opportunities provided by our internal Education Team
• Opportunities for inpatient palliative care experience
• Access to external study days and conferences

Job responsibilities:

• As a Registered Nurse you will work within a multi-disciplinary team providing clinical care, navigation, coordination and support to hospice patients and their families.
• Through holistic assessment provide information, advice, psychosocial and spiritual care to patients with palliative and end of life care needs, supporting their families and carers, liaising and referring on as necessary to appropriate health and social care professionals.
• To work in partnership with those receiving care, helping them to access relevant health and social care, information and support when they need it.
• Support people to access, identify, appraise and interpret information, to enable them to determine their own future.
• To maintain effective communication skills to deliver highly emotive information clearly, sensitively and unambiguously with staff, patients, families and professionals by face-to-face, telephone and/or electronic means.
• To work collaboratively as part of the multi-disciplinary team (MDT) sharing the clinical caseload of patients/carers within the locality/in-patient unit for patients who have palliative care needs to ensure efficient and timely care is coordinated and delivered.
• To work as part of the multi-disciplinary team, seeking advice from colleagues or/and clinical leadership team when required, in order to make sound decisions around palliative and end of life care.
• To support management in training and mentoring a multidisciplinary workforce from novice to expert to work as one team.
• To support any streamlined locality/IPU processes and services by embedding quality improvement methodology including clear outcome measures to produce efficient and highly performing community services.
• To support the Hospice in building strong relationships with external partners and stakeholders and promote the good reputation of the Hospice e.g. local trusts, CCG, health and social care partners, businesses and voluntary organisations.
• To support and guide Health Care Assistants, Healthcare Support Workers and volunteers in their daily practice.

Person Specification:

• Experience in the delivery of end of life and palliative care or related disciplines.
• Proven ability of successfully working with people and handling difficult and sometimes complex situations.
• Ability to work under pressure, manage own stress and emotional responses and be aware of stress in others.
• Ability to use a range of IT systems and software, including Word, Excel, PowerPoint, Office 365 and electronic patient record systems (such as SystmOne), as well as virtual systems e.g. Zoom, MS Teams.
• Ability to reflect and critically appraise own performance.
• Ability to motivate self and others and to lead by example.
• Able to effectively resolve professional and ethical issues.
• Ability to prioritise issues and tasks.
• Good oral/written communication and interpersonal skills.
• Passionate about Hospice Care and enthusiasm for the vision of the organisation.
• Team player who can work as part of our One Team ethos.
• Good level of emotional intelligence and resilience.
• Flexible approach to work, with ability to work out of hours on occasions.
• Committed to the development of palliative care skills in others.
• Committed to working in partnership with people, their relatives and carers, other organisations and agencies.
• Driving licence and access to vehicle.
• Satisfactory Disclosure and Barring Service check.
• Experience of holistic assessment and complex symptom management.
• Experience of multi-disciplinary team working.
• Experience of working unsupervised (Lone working).

• Nurse Registration.
• Evidence of continued professional development.
• Advanced Communications Skills Training.
• Disclosure and Barring Service Check.

This post is subject to the Rehabilitation of Offenders Act (Exceptions Order) 1975 and as such it will be necessary for a submission for Disclosure to be made to the Disclosure and Barring Service (formerly known as CRB) to check for any previous criminal convictions.