Community Hospice Specialist Nurse (Junior) in Bury St Edmunds

Are you a compassionate and experienced Registered Nurse with a passion for palliative care? Do you thrive in managing complex caseloads and delivering high-quality care in patients' homes? St Nicholas Hospice Care is seeking a Community Hospice Specialist Nurse to join our dedicated team supporting patients across West Suffolk and Thetford. The role covers the core hours 9-5pm, with a rotational weekend/BH day cover.

Main duties of the job

• Manage a complex caseload of patients with life-limiting conditions, providing expert assessment, symptom management, and care planning.
• Deliver person-centred care in community settings, including patients' homes, care homes, and clinics.
• Work autonomously while collaborating with Clinical Nurse Specialists, GPs, and other healthcare professionals.
• Provide clinical leadership, mentoring, and support to junior staff and Health Care Assistants.
• Offer emotional and psychological support to patients and families, ensuring dignity and choice at every stage.

About us

At St Nicholas Hospice Care, we believe everyone should matter in life and death. Our community team plays a vital role in ensuring patients receive compassionate, expert care wherever they call home.

Job responsibilities

Clinical

• Assess, plan, implement and evaluate nursing interventions for patients with palliative care needs.
• Begin to integrate theory with practice to develop plans of treatment and care.
• Work autonomously and within own scope of practice to manage a caseload of patients, escalating non-routine matters to senior colleagues.
• Demonstrate some knowledge and understanding of the clinical presentation of disease processes and integrate this knowledge into the assessment and management of patients.
• Increasingly demonstrate knowledge and understanding of the psychological responses to terminal illness and develop skills to assess and manage these in practice, referring to specialist services, as required.
• Assess pain and other symptoms with the use of appropriate tools, ensuring an understanding of clinical history and physical examination.
• Demonstrate knowledge of therapeutic treatment methods and uses of medications to treat patients.
• Demonstrate understanding of the range of therapeutic options, which may be available to support the management of symptoms, including medication and non-pharmacological measures such as complementary therapies.
• In partnership with MDT members, review assessments in response to changing needs.
• Support the autonomy and independence of patients, ensuring the provision of holistic and person-centred care, with awareness of the principles of the Mental Capacity Act (2005).
• Demonstrate advancing communication skills to respond to the needs of patients and families and to enable open discussion, including facilitating discussion around advance care plans and difficult conversations.
• Assess and support the need for additional information required by patients and families, ensuring that this is person-centred.
• Demonstrate an ability to problem-solve, to enable patients and families to find resolution to their concerns, signposting to other professionals or services, as appropriate.
• Work closely as part of the multi-disciplinary team by engaging in regular clinical meetings.
• Act as a resource for junior colleagues.
• Facilitate support for carers, recognising their value in the care of patients facing palliative and end of life care.
• Demonstrate understanding of clinical risk and safeguarding.
• Maintain accurate and contemporaneous patient records.
• Develop understanding of the medications used in palliative care, to support practice.
• Actively participate in clinical supervision.

Leadership and management

• Act as a role model demonstrating high standards of care and clinical leadership at all times.
• Provide a clinical triage telephone service, as required.
• Act as line manager for Senior Hospice Nurses.
• Work collaboratively with other services to support the continuum of care for patients across West Suffolk and Thetford.
• Work closely with senior colleagues to deliver palliative out-patient clinics session in settings across West Suffolk and Thetford.
• Identify and participate in service improvement initiatives and processes.
• Support a one clinical team approach, developing own skills to deliver care across settings to support business continuity.
• Provide clinical support and advice during out of hours periods for junior colleagues in the absence of senior colleagues, escalating concerns outside role and responsibilities, as appropriate.
• Manage own caseload with regular support from the senior colleagues.
• Participate in work which demonstrates clinical quality outcomes eg: clinical audit.
• Seek patient feedback proactively and collate responses as per organisational guidance in order to develop services.

Education and Research

• Review own training and education needs based on feedback from appraisal, audit and changes to national guidance.
• Actively maintain current knowledge across specialist palliative care by reading and informal learning opportunities.
• Participate in the development and delivery of educational programmes to enhance the learning of others, including professionals, patients and carers.
• Provision of formal and informal training to internal and external colleagues.
• Work with learners, acting as Practice Assessor, as appropriate.
• Engage in regular Continued Professional Development opportunities to ensure that own clinical practice remains current.
• Work towards achievement of additional Level 6 and Level 7 modules to support development into a Senior CNS post.
• Engage with opportunities for clinical supervision.
• Where possible, participate in research opportunities across palliative care.

Person Specification

• Evidence of continued professional development.
• Significant post registration experience in palliative care or oncology.
• Knowledge and experience of palliative care caseload management.
• Significant experience of working autonomously.

Qualifications

• Relevant diploma or degree in Nursing.
• Post-registration qualification in cancer/palliative care, long term conditions, or a relevant subject (eg: Advanced Communication Skills, Clinical Assessment) at BSc level.

Skills and Abilities

• Understanding of the value of multi-disciplinary team working.
• Robust understanding of own professional and clinical boundaries.
• Awareness of own emotional responses and ability to respond to these appropriately.
• Ability to reflect and critically appraise own performance.
• Ability to motivate self and others and to lead by example.
• Able to recognise and consider professional and ethical issues, seeking support as appropriate.
• Driving license, use of own car, business insurance.

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.