HealthJobsUK

Job overview

If you are a compassionate and caring individual, who works well within a team and has a strong desire to maximise the quality of life for people in the community with an artificial feeding tube, then this could be the role you are looking for!

This exciting post has developed from an expansion in the clientele of the Home Enteral Feeding (HEF) Dietetic team to include those with Profound & Multiple Learning Disabilities (PMLD), who have feeding tubes in situ.

This post combines specialist MDT working within the Learning Disabilities care team to provide a high standard of dietetic service for the HEF PMLD clients for 0.6WTE.

The other 0.4WTE will be spent working with the small but dedicated HEF Dietetic Team, providing dietetic support and advice to home enterally fed adults, their carers/families/wider care team and to other Health Care Professionals across Cornwall.

The dietetic role as a HEF specialist within the Learning Disabilities care team is newly funded and as such there is the opportunity to establish, mould and develop the HEF service within the LD team and would therefore suit a driven and motivated individual.  

Main duties of the job

You will be responsible for providing the HEF dietetic service to approx. 35 patients with PMLD out of the 140 HEF patients; working closely with the multi-disciplinary team for learning disabilities, to ensure a holistic & collaborative approach.

You will complete full assessments to gather nutritional and holistic information, enabling you to create suitable feeding regimens appropriate for individuals. Monitoring progress and making relevant adjustments  is key to ensure a successful feeding care plan and a happy service user!

For all of the caseload we aim to provide a streamlined service that best meets peninsula HEF dietetic standards. Communication between all healthcare professionals is essential & thus is a key required skill.

Liaising with the contracted feed company to place and monitor feed/equipment orders as well as linking directly with feed company nurses is an important part of the daily tasks. 

We work closely with the gastrostomy specialist dietitian giving the opportunity to extend the dietetic role towards obtaining competencies with gastrostomy tubes and stoma sites. 

Developing and streamlining the service to ensure best evidence-based practice is provided by the team is also important. Creating & developing supporting protocols, policy's and procedures is integral to the service.  

Supervision of assisting staff, peer support and student training is expected as part of this profession.  

Working for our organisation

There are two elements to this specialist HEF role; the well established dietetic role within the general HEF caseload, and the new role working with enterally fed patients with PMLD.

The adult HEF RD team consists of a band 6 peer dietitian, the team lead and an Assistant Practitioner, with additional close working alongside the gastrostomy specialist dietitian. We currently work remotely due to essential work being completed in our office building. This means we link mostly through Microsoft Teams, which can be isolating at times. However, our work involves us being out & about much of the time, so the comfort of being back in your own home in between can be beneficial. There is the potential of 'hot desking' at other offices around the county as/if required.    

The new PMLD HEF post provides an exciting & fantastic opportunity for the right person to establish & develop the role within the LD MDT's.  The support and professional involvement of the extensive MDT team is second to none and you will also have the benefit of the guidance and expertise of Briony Caffrey, who is one of the countries dietetic leads in this specialist area.   

Whatever area of HEF you are active in, we all share the same objective of working hard to maintain the wellness of our clients; striving to help achieve or maintain quality of life.