Palliative Care Nurse in Luton

Are you an experienced Adult Nurse ready to take the next step in your career? Are you interested in palliative care and dedicated to providing excellent care including at end of life? Join our compassionate, enthusiastic team and become a role model for our professional and hospice values, whilst showing positive leadership qualities. You will be excited to learn new clinical skills to actively support ongoing service development and delivery.

Main duties of the job

• Supervise and participate in delivery of holistic patient centred care
• Assess and evaluate individual care plans for the patient and their family taking into account their diverse needs
• Assess and manage patients symptoms with support from wider team
• Provide professional leadership and support colleagues to achieve their objectives
• Ensure patients and their families experience is professional, welcoming, relaxed and friendly

About us

Keech Hospice provides free specialist palliative and end of life care for people of all ages. We support adults in Bedfordshire, children and their families in Bedfordshire, Hertfordshire, and Milton Keynes. At home, in hospice, or wherever we’re needed. As a teaching hospice, our exceptional people, training, and facilities are helping local communities to live and die well.

Job responsibilities

• Undertake patient assessment in their own home or place of care as required.
• Where appropriate, initiate an individualised plan of care and ensure transfer of care responsibility is communicated effectively.
• Ensure families are received at the hospice into a welcoming, relaxed and friendly environment. Recognise the need for support and initiate referral to carer services as appropriate.
• Supervise and participate in the delivery of evidenced based clinical care, reporting any change in a patients condition to the Palliative Care CNS team.
• Assess, plan, implement and evaluate individual care plans for the patient and their family taking into account their physical, social, psychological and spiritual needs.
• Assess and manage patients symptoms with support of the wider team.
• Maintain accurate records including records pertaining to all referrals and admissions in line with confidentiality, data protection and other statutory regulations and requirements.
• Take responsibility for the care provided to patients and families allocated to you and the work of the junior staff under your care.
• Lead the shift when required, co-ordinating the workload and supporting junior team members during this period.
• Use advanced communication skills to impart complex and sensitive information to patients and carers, providing them with advice and emotional support as appropriate.
• Empower and educate patients and carers on their specific condition.
• Ensure clinical standards are of the highest possible and developed as necessary.
• Ensure effective communication and liaison with other members of the Hospice Team and outside agencies, reporting and discussing individual cases as appropriate.
• Provide professional leadership and ensure all professional Codes of Conduct and guidelines are met and maintained.
• Participate in the induction of new staff and provide support to seconded staff.
• Attend multi-disciplinary, organisational, and safeguarding meetings and provide written and/or oral reports as required.
• Reflect on own practice and be willing to participate in clinical debriefs and supervision as part of self-care management and support for other colleagues.
• Work across the Adult Service Departments as the need arises.
• Undertake a link role to develop own knowledge and skills and participate in audits as requested.
• Support colleagues to achieve their objectives within their own link roles.
• Actively participate in maintaining a safe environment, taking care of the equipment available, and ensuring all daily and weekly checks are completed, with any concerns escalated through the appropriate channel.
• Take the opportunity to attend training sessions, consider how your learning will change how you work, and share learning with other colleagues.
• When working in the Community follow the lone worker policy.
• When working within the hospice, be aware of the lone worker policy and take responsibility with the team for ensuring that community colleagues also follow the lone worker policy and escalations to shift leader/senior clinician on-call promptly.

Experience

• Understanding of the Specialist Palliative Care Philosophy and national strategy
• Understanding of End of Life care strategy
• Complex symptom management
• Understanding of Rare neurological palliative conditions
• Previous work in a hospice or community setting, or relevant, transferable experience.

Additional Criteria

• Advanced clinical skills in holistic assessment and care planning
• Advanced Communication skills
• Excellent organisational and time management skills
• Ability to motivate others

Qualifications

• RN1-NMC registered
• Palliative Care Experience
• Principles of Assessment and Diagnosis

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.