Detailed job description and main responsibilities

Clinical

•         Use expert and specialist nursing skills to support and prepare families who have had an antenatal diagnosis of CHD in partnership with consultant fetal cardiologist

•         Provide expert ongoing support of the mother and family around prenatal fetal diagnosis of Congenital Heart Disease (CHD) up to birth and until follow up by cardiologist or relevant postnatal team within GOSH or local care

•         Ensure accurate written documentation of contact with families, GOSH services and external clinicians on electronic patient records

•         Liaise with relevant GOSH and local services including social work, psychology, palliative care

•         Provide communication and counselling to support parents within the outreach networks that provide obstetric services

•         The post holder will support and where able provide bereavement counselling or refer onto other professionals locally those families who opt for termination of the affected pregnancy.

•         Organise and run support group days and nurse-led clinics

•         Attend outreach clinics external to GOSH with consultant fetal cardiologist

•         Attend safeguarding and psychosocial meetings to ensure safety of the family and unborn baby

•         Use pathways of care to develop a streamlined and informed journey for families.

•         Maintain involvement with relevant professional bodies, i.e. PCNA, ARC, SANDS, Little Hearts Matter, British Heart Foundation and Children’s Heart Federation.

Management and leadership 

•                     Provide nursing leadership to develop, deliver and evaluate services. 

•                     Support the effective management of patient activity throughout the care pathway with a focus on continuous quality improvement.

•                     Contribute to the service development plans as appropriate.

•                     Assist the team in identifying potential cost reduction efficiency savings.

•                     Act as a visible role model and foster an environment that enhances the patient family and staff experience

•                     Provide expert professional advice and support to colleagues.

•                     Ensure that all staff know where to access trust policies and clinical procedure guidelines and that staff adhere to these at all times.

•                     In conjunction with managers and the Head of Nursing, ensure systems for the effective investigation and management of complaints and clinical incidents within the department are established, ensuring that lessons learned are shared within the unit, division and Trust as appropriate.

•                     Actively promote and engage with the patient quality (safety, effectiveness and experience) agenda and the transformation programme locally and across the Trust.

•                     Lead on relevant elements of the corporate nursing agenda for the specialty and undertake relevant Trust wide projects in agreement with the line manager.

•                     Initiate and develop audits of service delivery and implement findings to improve patient care.

•                     Act as an ambassador for the department and specialties both within and outside the trust.

•                     Participate in events or publications that promote the trust and children’s nursing.

•                     Develop and maintain written information for families and external health professions.

•                     To offer education and support to all professionals caring for families with a child with congenital heart disease

•                     Participate and present at relevant conferences as appropriate.

•                     Develop a range of resources with colleagues to ensure support and education for families.

•                     Collaboration at band 7 level across fetal and cardiac services to ensure seamless transition from antenatal to postnatal care. 

Educational

•                     Ensure that all staff have up to date clinical skills, knowledge and competence. 

•                     Foster an environment conducive to learning, inquiry, and research

•                     Support the identification of the training and development needs of nursing staff

•                     Play a lead role in educational development relevant to the specialty and patient caseload.

•                     Contribute to identification of learning needs and development of appropriate multi- professional programmes on a national basis.

•                     Provide support and training to other professionals both within the trust and in community/shared care settings to develop skills/knowledge to deliver appropriate specialist care to children and families. 

•                     Have a leadership role in the development, production and evaluation of national and international clinical standards / practice guidelines 

•                     Delivery of teaching to the teams within the GOSH network hospitals.

Research and Development 

•                     Initiate and lead improvement, audit and research studies relating to nursing and multidisciplinary care, within the specialist areas of practice, presenting findings through presentations and writing for publication.

•                     Actively promote research awareness and evidenced base care to ensure that all families & children are cared for in accordance with the latest evidence.

•                     Work within the research governance arrangements to support audit of practice and continual improvement - locally, nationally and internationally.

•                     Develop and evaluate tools to audit practice within specialist area of practice.

•                     As appropriate, to engage in research trials within specialist area of practice and publish results to increase the body of knowledge.

•                     Keep up to date with emerging thinking / findings from other centres.

•                     Work with others to maintain service database, including ensuring data entry, retrieval and analysis and provide activity reports as requested.

•                     To use PROMS/PREMS to evaluate practice and improve patient care.