Job summary
- Main area
- Band 7 Dietitian
- Grade
- Band 7
- Contract
- Permanent
- Hours
- Full time
- Flexible working
- Job ref
- 350-MHC7861893
- Employer
- Mersey Care NHS Foundation Trust
- Employer type
- NHS
- Site
- Mersey Care Trust Headquarters
- Town
- Prescot
- Salary
- £47,810 - £54,710 per annum
- Salary period
- Yearly
- Closing
- 29/03/2026 23:59
- Interview date
- 07/04/2026
Employer heading
Band 7 Dietitian
Band 7
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Mersey Care NHS Foundation Trust celebrates diversity and promotes equal opportunities; we are committed to challenging and eliminating racism and other forms of discrimination and advancing and promoting equality of opportunity in the provision of services and creating an inclusive environment for all employees. We believe that everyone has the right to be treated with dignity and respect.
We take positive action to support disadvantaged groups and also particularly encourage applications from ethnically diverse, disabled and LGBTQIA+ people that are under-represented in our workforce. Furthermore we welcome applications from reservists and ex-armed forces personnel as we recognise the benefits of the values, skills, training and experience that they bring to their work with us. We encourage all applicants to share their equality information with us.
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Job overview
We are excited to offer opportunities for highly skilled dietitians to join our collaborative team, leading nutritional support and skilled interventions and pathway optimisation across mental health care division
The post is an exciting opportunity to be based across In-Patient mental health care services. You will be responsible for managing a diverse case load of complex patients in Weight Management with co-morbidity and Nutritional support patients in addition to supporting your team with their case loads. You will receive and complete regular supervision for yourself and others and support will be provided to you to gain your confidence and competencies whilst you work as the team leader managing your teams competence and confidence within their score of practice
You will provide daily in-patient ward based clinics to assess and review patients. You will attend MDT's to communicate your treatment care plan and monitoring, this will involve frequent networking with all health-professionals. You will deliver Nutritional Screening training to a variety of staff and will support audit and the objectives in the Nutrition and hydration Strategy.
Using evidence based practice and working within the British Dietetic Association Professional code of conduct is paramount. You will be encouraged to attend training and courses to support and enhance Learning and development and apply skills in your practice as well as that of your team
Main duties of the job
To provide specialist evidence based clinical care (and expertise and team leadership) to ensure an effective dietetic service which aims to maximise the nutritional status of service users within in-patient areas of the Mental Health Care Division.
Working for our organisation
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.
Detailed job description and main responsibilities
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· Enthusiastic, forward thinking professionals with exceptional communication, leadership and analytical skills
· Specialist knowledge in one or more areas: Mental health, adults, , nutrition support, diabetes, obesity,
· Experience in optimising nutrition
· Flexible and adaptable, comfortable working in a dynamic health care environment.
- Provide care, advice, and guidance in the treatment of others, when dealing with complex highly specialist conditions.
- Responsible for the delivery of identified training.
- Work in partnership with the other services/stakeholder partnership agencies to enable patients/clients to be treated in the appropriate setting. This may include procurement and enteral feed contract reviews.
- Ensure that the team provides a high-quality service to its patients/clients by providing caseload and clinical supervision.
- Ensure that team work proactively in order to deliver anticipatory and maintenance care, providing a responsive service to patients with both planned and unplanned care needs.
- Develop partnerships and joint working with service users and stakeholders to improve patient/client care.
- Work in partnership with other organisations to support the effective and co-ordinated provision of health and social care services.
- Participate in the development of caseload management across the local health economy.
- Provide leadership and mentoring to those staff developing into a caseload management role.
- Challenge professional and organisational boundaries to ensure that the role is focused on meeting the needs of service users.
- Act as an advocate and champion for patients/clients in a variety of forums and professional groups and challenge attitudes and behaviour.
- Act as a role model to others ensuring that patients receive the most effective care possible.
- Contribute to the development of policy and services to reflect the needs of the target population.
Please refer to attached Job Description for full list of duties and responsibilities.
Person specification
Qualifications
Essential criteria
- BSc Nutrition and Dietetics or relevant degree with post graduate diploma in dietetics
- Health Professions Council registration for dietetics
Desirable criteria
- Full member of British Dietetic Association (BDA)
- Teaching qualification
Values
Essential criteria
- Continuous Improvement
- Accountability
- Respect
- Enthusiasm
- Support
Experience
Essential criteria
- Clinical/service governance
- Code of conduct and professional ethics
- Minimum of five years recent experience in adult dietetics
- Experience at Band 6 level
- Experience managing/leading people
- Experience of working in mental health setting
Desirable criteria
- Behavioural change skills and Cognitive Behavioural Therapy
- Wide range of experience in NHS
- Working with hospital or commercial caterers
Knowledge & Skills
Essential criteria
- National DOH initiatives
- Knowledge of Recovery principles and their application in this field
- NHS systems and environment
- Ability to interpret current health service national and local policy and guidelines, including national and local public health agenda, to apply to conditions in mental health, addictions and learning disability setting
- Ability to work under pressure and manage a diverse caseload
- Analytical and report writing skills
- Highly developed communication and clinical skills to enable engagement with those with challenging behavioural problems, eg eating disorders
- Highly developed motivational skills to meet the challenge of changing the lifestyles of those who are mentally ill coupled with pharmacologically induced problems
- Ability to facilitate and lead discussions in professional/multi-agency meetings
- Evidence of professional development
- Information technology skills (work processing, e -mail, dietary analysis, internet searching, recording clinical notes, etc)
- Presentation skills with the ability to present to large groups
- Ability to monitor competing commitments to reflect service priorities
- Ability to respond to unpredictable work patterns and frequent interruptions
- Competence at boundary setting, assertiveness and interpersonal skills
- Proficient at time management, working to deadlines and good organisational skills
- Ability to work in a physically and emotionally demanding environment
- Empathetic towards people with mental health needs, learning disabilities and addictions
- Self motivated and committed to best practice
- Confident
- Flexible and adaptable
Desirable criteria
- Accurate anthropometric skills
- Mental Health Act
Employer certification / accreditation badges
Applicant requirements
You must have appropriate UK professional registration.
This post is subject to the Rehabilitation of Offenders Act 1974 (Exceptions) Order 1975 (Amendment) (England and Wales) Order 2020 and it will be necessary for a submission for Disclosure to be made to the Disclosure and Barring Service.
Documents to download
Further details / informal visits contact
- Name
- Natalie Sutton
- Job title
- Modern Matron - Physical Health
- Email address
- [email protected]
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