Community Clinical Nurse Specialist (Bank) in Lewes

Would you like to use your specialist palliative care skills and expertise to help your local community? Our specialist team provides care for people with complex symptom management arising from life limiting illnesses. The care is provided within the home setting and also includes phone support for carers of the individual. Our Community Clinical Nurse Specialists work autonomously, managing a caseload of patients with specialist palliative care and end of life care needs in the community. This role involves providing palliative nursing interventions working closely with medical and other colleagues, both internally and externally, ensuring a coordinated and effective service in the hospice and community setting.

Location: Community-based (Driving required)

Salary: Clinical Band 7, £47,810 - £54,710 per annum (FTE), dependent on experience

Contract: Bank

Closing Date: Early applications encouraged as we will be shortlisting and interviewing as applications are received.

You will find the full job description at the bottom of our website page. We encourage you to apply directly via our website to give us the opportunity to contact you for an informal discussion ahead of the closing date.

For more information or an informal chat about the role, please contact Kaylee Teageron at kteager@stpjhospice.org.

About us

St Peter and St James Hospice provides specialist palliative and end of life care both in the community and at our hospice, supporting patients living with a terminal illness, and their loved ones. If you’re passionate about palliative care and want to be part of a team that truly makes a difference, we would love to hear from you.

Job responsibilities

• Provide advanced level palliative nursing interventions working closely with medical and other colleagues, both internally and externally, ensuring a coordinated and effective service in the community setting.
• Advise and support colleagues within and external to St Peter and St James Hospice, on issues including advanced symptom control, ethical issues and highly complex nursing interventions. This includes providing the weekend service.
• Provide leadership, innovation and excellence in clinical practice to support the patients under their care.
• Undertake holistic assessments, plan, implement and evaluate palliative interventions and support delivered to the patient and those important to them.
• Participate in the daily triaging of hospice referrals, in managing the team caseload and prioritising daily team workload.
• Mentor and support RNs and HCAs within the Community team.
• Offer specialist advice to external partners, i.e. GPs, district nurses, nursing homes, adult social care, continuing health care, and foster close collaborative working relationships.
• Utilise advanced communication skills to address complex psycho-social problems.
• Be professionally and legally accountable for all work undertaken and to practise at an advanced level of professional autonomy and accountability within the policies of St Peter and St James Hospice.
• Participate in clinical supervision and be a member of at least one hospice group, and contribute actively to the clinical strategy.
• Collate workload data and evaluate the effectiveness and benefits of the role, which will then inform ongoing strategic planning and analysis of need.
• Effectively identify nursing practice development priorities within the clinical setting and participate in practice development projects with the speciality.
• Participate in hospice audits as required.
• Provide education and training in aspects of palliative care to employees within St Peter and St James Hospice and external healthcare professionals, e.g. local care homes, Community Nursing teams; including the Sussex Hospices Project ECHO work.
• Maintain an up-to-date knowledge of national policy on palliative care and end of life care.
• Comply fully with the Nursing and Midwifery Council (NMC) Code of Conduct, Performance and Ethics (2008) to protect public and patient safety and requirements for NMC Revalidation.
• Maintain contemporaneous, accurate records, ensuring that all entries on SystmOne and related documentation are entered frequently to agreed hospice standards.

Knowledge and Skills

• Emotional resilience to manage excessive exposure to dying people and family distress as well as to manage difficult situations.
• Ability to work under pressure and flexibly across different clinical settings and shift patterns.
• Enthusiastic, assertive and positive attitude.
• Caring, kind and compassionate with a pleasant disposition and smart appearance.
• Organised time management.
• Ability to use initiative, work autonomously, manage and prioritise workload as well as supervise / mentor junior staff.
• Excellent verbal and written communication and interpersonal skills and good command of spoken English (assessed at interview).
• Confident in use of IT and knowledge of Data Protection principles and Information Governance.
• Leadership and delegation skills, including motivation and collaborative working.
• Good numeracy, teaching and analytical skills.
• A good understanding of clinical governance including patient safety.

Qualifications

• Registered Nurse with current NMC registration and evidence of recent CPD.
• Evidence of palliative care/oncology education to degree level.
• Evidence of palliative care/oncology education to Masters level.
• Advanced Physical assessment qualification.
• Non Medical Prescribing Qualification in community nursing.

Experience

• Significant recent experience as a Registered Nurse.
• Evidence of good practice in palliative nursing (or Oncology or similar), including evidence of advanced practice involving complex decision-making and working with a high degree of autonomy.
• Knowledge of symptom control towards and at the end of life including pharmacological management of symptoms.
• Understanding of current professional nursing issues relating to palliative and end of life care.
• Driving licence and car with Business Car Insurance and ability to travel to varying work locations.
• Experience in delivering training.
• Advanced Communication Skills training.
• Understanding of national drivers around palliative and end of life care, and of local strategy relating to end of life care.
• Experience in the management of complex needs and medicines management at the end of life.

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.