Charge Nurse - Children\'s and Young Person Emergency Department in Nottingham

Join our dynamic team as a Band 7 Sister/Charge Nurse in the Children and Young Peoples Emergency Department at one of the UKs largest paediatric trauma centres. This senior leadership role offers the chance to lead a skilled nursing team in a fast-paced environment, caring for children and young people with acute illness, injury, major trauma, mental health concerns, and life-threatening emergencies.

You will provide visible clinical leadership, support patient flow, ensure compliance with policies, and drive quality improvement and service development initiatives. Mentoring, supervising, and developing staff is key, alongside maintaining governance, safety standards, and operational efficiency.

We offer professional development opportunities to enhance leadership, management, and advanced clinical skills. Nottingham Childrens Hospital holds ANCC Pathway to Excellence accreditation—the only childrens hospital in Europe with this distinction—reflecting our commitment to staff engagement, excellence, and innovation. If you are an experienced paediatric emergency nurse with a passion for leadership and high-quality care, we welcome your application.

As Charge Nurse in the CYPED, you will provide senior clinical and operational leadership to ensure safe, effective, and compassionate care. You will maintain high standards of nursing practice, patient safety, and quality across the department.

• Lead the delivery of evidence-based care, working with the wider MDT to identify challenges affecting care quality and develop action plans to address gaps.
• Regularly evaluate patient pathways and experiences to ensure effectiveness and satisfaction.
• Act as the senior clinical point of contact, manage deteriorating patients, safeguarding concerns, and complex or high-risk cases.
• Oversee patient flow, triage, and resource allocation to support timely and efficient care delivery and help achieve national and local performance standards.
• Supervise, support, and mentor the nursing workforce, promoting professional development, competence, and wellbeing.
• In partnership with the senior leadership team, manage staffing, shift coordination, sickness management, and maintain appropriate senior nurse presence.
• Support audits, quality improvement, and service development initiatives, ensuring learning is embedded and improvements sustained.
• Provide guidance and reassurance to patients, families, and staff, representing the patient and family voice in decision-making.

• Support and contribute to clinical audit, quality improvement initiatives, and compliance with governance and safety standards, embedding learning into practice.
• Oversee management of Datix incident reports, lead investigations where appropriate, and ensure action plans are implemented and monitored.
• Lead the nursing team in safeguarding, patient safety, and escalation planning for high-risk scenarios.

• Work with the senior leadership team to manage the day-to-day department operations, including staffing coordination, shift planning, and sickness management.
• Maintain minimum senior staffing levels across all shifts and optimise patient flow, triage processes, and resource allocation to improve waiting times and throughput.
• Support service development and embedding of learning into practice.

• Play a key role in staff development, mentoring and supporting junior nurses and students, fostering a culture of learning, reflection, and professional development.
• Contribute to appraisal, return-to-work processes, and ongoing competency assessment, supporting staff wellbeing and performance.

• Demonstrate compassion, professionalism, and strong leadership, acting as an advocate for children, young people, and their families.
• Work within a collaborative multidisciplinary environment, leading by example and contributing to continuous improvement in patient care and outcomes.

The post requires working a full range of shifts, including nights and weekends.

With over 19,000 staff, we are one of the biggest employers in the city with a central role in supporting the health and wellbeing of our local population. We play a leading role in research, education and innovation. We welcome new ideas to help develop our team to deliver world class healthcare to the vast patient populations we serve. We particularly welcome applications from people who identify as Black, Asian and Minority Ethnic, or Disabled, as we are striving to be better represented at NUH.