Lead Admissions Nurse Band 6 (Internal Grade 4) in London

Designed by families, for families, The Ark was opened in September 2019 by the Mayor of London. The grounds offer wheelchair accessible outdoor experiences, including a Woodland Walk through a 7-acre nature reserve, a hydrotherapy pool and overnight suites for families to be close to their loved ones. At The Ark we are able to provide Specialist Care and Nursing for babies, children and young people, supporting their full clinical, emotional, social and practical needs. We have created a space where children who are seriously unwell are accepted as they are, safe to play, explore, express themselves and build confidence. Rated as ‘Outstanding’ by the Care Quality Commission, the charity has had a sustained period of growth over the last two years and we are looking for high quality employees to come and be a part of that success.

Our expert staff and trained volunteers provide clinical, emotional and practical support for families across North and Central London and Herts Valley. We carefully adapt our support for every child and offer it wherever it is required - whether in their home, their community or at our state-of-the-arc children’s hospice building, The Ark, in Barnet.

You will be joining an award-winning, certified Outstanding team, who do all they can to empower babies, children, young people and families to experience as much life as possible on a 12-month fixed-term contract. As a member of Noah’s Ark Nurse and Specialist Care team, you will put the experience of children and families at the heart of all you do. As well as understanding their care needs, you will get to know what’s important to each child you support – whether it’s knowing what their favourite song to listen to is, how they like to play, or what soothes them when they are sad - at Noah’s Ark it’s so important that each child is treated as an individual.

You will focus on what children can do, rather than their limitations, and will support them to experience things they may never have thought possible. And by providing care for children, either at our state-of-the-art building, The Ark, or out in the community, you will be allowing parents and carers to take some time for themselves. The hours of care you will provide will make a huge difference, allowing them to live life outside of their child’s condition. By creating this time, you will be creating choice – something which can feel impossible for the families we support.

As the Lead Admissions Nurse, you would be an integral part of the admission team, liaising with families to get them booked in and ensuring all pre-admission elements are complete to support their stay. When required, you would join our experienced nursing team to help provide a 24/7 on-call symptom assessment/management service for babies, children, and young people in The Ark and out in the community.

Your commitment to children and families will continue through to end-of-life care. You will be a guiding reassuring presence for families elevating anxiety and worry and working with other healthcare professionals to create as much comfort as possible. You will be providing essential symptom management to help to bring comfort, as well as giving the choice of preferred place of care and preferred place of death.

During this time, you will continue to treat each child and family as an individual by taking the time to understand what is important to them. You will help to create memories to enable as good a death as possible. A natural and experienced leader, you will deliver high quality and effective training to other members of the team and family members. You will provide direct line management support to Band 5 Nurses (equivalent) and Band 3 & 4 (equivalent) Specialist Carers.

With excellent clinical and communication skills, you’ll either be an experienced Band 5 Nurse with palliative and/or complex care experience, ready to take a step upwards in your career, or a Band 6 Nurse already working in the palliative/complex care sector or have previous palliative care experience. You’ll have experience managing a nursing team, or experience of supporting students, junior staff nurses or support workers.

You’ll be able to work collaboratively, experienced in leading a multi-skilled team, or can demonstrate experience of leadership with the support from a lead nurse. Aside from experience, we look for individuals who share our core values of kindness, excellence and courage. We’ll support you to go above and beyond to be there for the children and families we support – we ask that you share this mission with us.

You’ll thrive working autonomously, confident in your ability to deliver care on your own out in the community. You’ll know the value of collaboration, and will work closely with your team members, other healthcare professionals and the families you support to provide the very best care. Creativity and play will be central to your approach to care, with the ability to build long-term relationships with the children and families you care for.

Noah’s Ark Children’s Hospice is an equal opportunity employer and particularly welcomes applications from groups who are currently under-represented in our staff. Our diversity council is working hard to construct positive changes within our organisation. We are a disability confident employer and part of our commitment is to interview all applicants with a disability who meet the minimum criteria for a job vacancy and consider them on their abilities.