SEND Assistant Practitioner / Nursing Associate

The successful applicant will be a dynamic, highly motivated individual, with excellent interpersonal and communication skills. As a SEND Assistant Practitioner / Nurse Associate, you will be working as part of a pro-active skill mix team who are committed to delivering high quality services.

The successful candidate will work 3 days per week during term time only. The hours of work are 8.30am - 4.30pm, Monday - Friday.

The Children’s service provides support to children, young people and their families within a progressive universal model of service delivery dependent on assessed need. The service offers every child/family a programme of screening, developmental reviews and information and guidance to support parenting and healthy choices as defined by current School Health drivers.

The post holder will work as part of a team to promote and maintain the health and wellbeing of children and young people with mild, moderate and severe learning difficulties which could also include those with complex medical needs. This post will include providing clinical care within the school environment.

Responsibilities will include caring for children with urinary catheters, enteral feeds, and medication requirements along with an awareness of tracheostomy and stoma care within the school and community settings. Responding to emergency situations and contributing towards specialist individual care plans to meet the child/young person’s needs alongside staff training is an important aspect of the role.

The post holder will contribute towards undertaking holistic assessments of children, young people and families in planning and delivering the Healthy Child Programme, including health screening and immunisations, plus a requirement to safeguard and support the health needs of any vulnerable children/young people within the caseload across the city.

Mersey Care is one of the largest trusts providing physical health and mental health services in the North West, serving more than 1.4 million people across our region and are also commissioned for services that cover the North West, North Wales and the Midlands.

We offer specialist inpatient and community services that support physical and mental health and specialist inpatient mental health, learning disability, addiction and brain injury services. Mersey Care is one of only three trusts in the UK that offer high secure mental health facilities.

At the heart of all we do is our commitment to 'perfect care' - care that is safe, effective, positively experienced, timely, equitable and efficient. We support our staff to do the best job they can and work alongside service users, their families, and carers to design and develop future services together. We’re currently delivering a programme of organisational and service transformation to significantly improve the quality of the services we provide and safely reduce cost as we do so.

Flexible working requests will be considered for all roles.

The SEND Assistant Practitioner / Nurse Associate will work predominantly as part of the SEND School Health team to promote and improve health and well-being of school-aged children and young people to reduce health inequalities. The post holder will support the delivery of the Healthy Child Programme. The post holder will work in collaboration with partner agencies both voluntary and statutory to achieve good health outcomes for children and their families.

The post holder will work as part of the SEND School Health Team with delegated responsibility for the implementation and evaluation of programmes of care for children, young people and families.

Qualifications

• Essential: Registered Nurse Associate and on the NMC register or Assistant Practitioner
• Desirable: Work based experience

Values

• Essential: Continuous Improvement, Accountability, Respectfulness, Enthusiasm, Support, High professional standards, Responsive to service users, Engaging leadership style, Strong customer service belief, Transparency and honesty, Discreet, Change oriented

Skills

• Essential: Knowledge of Health Promotion Strategies, Excellent communication, organisational and interpersonal skills, Ability to motivate, negotiate with and influence others, Understanding of skills required for team working, Assessing, planning, implementing and evaluating individualised complex activities and programmes of care, Ability to travel, for work purposes, within the Mersey Care area

Knowledge & Experience

• Essential: Assessing, planning and implementing individualised programmes of care, Understanding local and national influences on health care delivery, including Public Health, Experience of previous work in health care, Clinical Governance and Risk Management, Actively involved in professional development, Experience in assessing for and ordering community equipment
• Desirable: Experience of working with children who have tracheostomy’s, urinary catheters, stoma, PEG feeds and usage of associated equipment

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.