Specialist Community Dietitian in Northampton

Main area Dietetics Grade NHS AfC: Band 6 Contract Permanent: some fixed term hours in addit available Hours Part time – 24 hours per week (some fixed term hours available to make full time to march 2027) Job ref 270-TG628-ACS

Employer Northamptonshire Healthcare NHS Foundation Trust Employer type NHS Site Highfield Clinical Education Centre Town Northampton Salary £38,682 – £46,580 pa pro rata Salary period Yearly Closing 15/01/2026 23:59

Specialist Community Dietitian

NHS AfC: Band 6

Job overview

We are looking for a dietitian to join our primary care team and can offer opportunities in community and mental health inpatient areas, outpatient clinics and specialist weight management. You will be part of our primary care dietetic team but will have support from a range of clinical specialist dietitians from across Northamptonshire. We are keen to work with you to develop your knowledge and skills and can offer you a competency package to complete if your feel you are not ready for a band 6 post yet but interested in moving to Northamptonshire. We are looking for a dietitian who is an excellent communicator, a team player, has a patient centred approach to care and keen to develop their clinical practice.

Main duties of the job

The role involves:

• Providing dietetic assessment, advice, treatment, monitoring and counselling to support behavioural change in patients who meet the referral criteria. This will be delivered through one-to-one interviews, group sessions and community-based clinics. Some of this work is now done virtually
• Autonomously managing a complex caseload and work with patients and their carers to agree patient centred care plans
• Working collaboratively with the wider multi-disciplinary health care team to ensure delivery of coordinated care and to provide specialist advice and attend case conferences, network meetings as appropriate
• Evaluating patients’ progress and collecting outcomes
• Contributing to and implementing service improvement work
• Using a range of verbal and non-verbal communication tools to communicate effectively with patients to implement treatment plans
• Providing advice and training to patients, carers, colleagues and other healthcare professionals to promote an understanding of the aims of dietetic treatment to ensure a consistent approach to patient care
• Managing clinical risk within own caseload
• Inputting into the training of dietetic students and other health care professionals

Working for our organisation

NHFT is an integrated primary care and mental health Trust, providing physical, mental health and speciality services in both hospital settings and out in the community. Because we put the person at the centre of all we do, we focus on delivering care that is as easy to access as possible. This means many of our services can be provided at home, work or in schools. We also provide health services to various prisons and detention centres in Bedfordshire and Cambridgeshire.

NHFT promotes a culture of learning to improve the care and safety of our patients and staff, which focuses on people who enable our Trust to be ‘outstanding’ by supporting opportunity, innovation, development and growth.

Detailed job description and main responsibilities

For further information on the advertised role, please refer to the job description located under the Supporting Documents heading. The full person specification can be accessed under the ‘About You’ Section of the document.

Person specification

knowledge and experience

• HCPC registered and diverse range of dietetic experience – nutritional support and weight managed especially
• demonstrated competency in a wide range of communication skills and ability to motivate patients to change behaviour

professional skills

• demonstrates team working, organisational skills and ability to work to work autonomously

You must ensure that your application, including supporting statements and behaviour examples, are truthful and factually accurate. Please note plagiarism can include presenting the ideas and experience of others, or generated by artificial intelligence, as your own.

Correspondence regarding your application will be sent to you via a TRAC system account.

Please submit your application as soon as possible; due to the high volumes of applications we receive we reserve the right to close any adverts before the closing date once we have received sufficient applications.

We are an equal opportunities employer, which aims to employ a workforce that reflects the diverse communities we serve. We welcome applications from all suitably qualified persons from all backgrounds.

All roles are subject to the home office immigration rules and therefore eligibility must meet certain requirements for any sponsorship to be considered. Please visit the government website for more information regarding eligibility.

At NHFT we support many of our colleagues to work flexibly and we will consider requests for flexible working from day one. For this role, we are open to discussing a range of options including flexible hours, agile/home working, compressed hours and part time hours. Please have a conversation with the recruiting manager about the flexibility you need and we will promise to explore what is possible with you.

Applicants who have a disability and meet the essential criteria for the job will be considered under the Guaranteed Interview Scheme. If you require a reasonable adjustment at any stage of the recruitment process please make the recruitment services team aware as soon as possible.

All posts that are engaged in a regulated activity will be subject to a Disclosure and Barring Service (DBS) check and a DBS re-check on a three yearly basis whilst employed in such a role. Staff employed in these posts will therefore be asked to register with the DBS Automatic Update Service upon receipt of their DBS certificate and must update yearly, the annual fee will be reimbursed subject to Trust policy. For further information please visit: DBS Update Service: applicant guide – GOV.UK (www.gov.uk)

Please note if a DBS is applicable for the position then a charge will be deducted from your first salary or upfront cost if a staff bank position.

Please note that all new starters to the trust are subject to a probationary period.

Employer certification / accreditation badges

You must have appropriate UK professional registration.

The postholder will have access to vulnerable people in the course of their normal duties and as such this post is subject to the Rehabilitation of Offenders Act 1974 (Exceptions) Order 1975 (Amendment) (England and Wales) Order 2020 and as such it will be necessary for a submission for Disclosure to be made to the Disclosure and Barring Service to check for any previous criminal convictions.