Dietitian

Job description

Job responsibilities

Job Summary

You will provide expert nutrition and dietetic advice to patients across all age groups, working closely with multidisciplinary teams to support and promote better health and wellbeing in the community. As a Trowbridge Primary Care Network clinician, you will deliver tailored dietary assessments and education to support patients with a range of diet-related health conditions. Whilst being based at our GP practices, your work will include patients from diverse settings, such as care homes, and will involve collaborative care planning to ensure continuity across primary, community, and secondary care. You will play a central role in developing and improving local nutrition support services, supporting patient transitions from hospital to home, and advising on nutrition-related medication management. In addition, you will contribute to clinical governance, service evaluation, audit, and training to uphold high standards of practice and drive continuous improvement.

Requirements for role

BSc or pre-reg MSc in Dietetics under a training programme approved by the British Dietetic Association

Registered member of the Health and Care Professionals Council (HCPC)

Role responsibilities:

Provide specialist nutrition and diet advise to patients, their carers, and healthcare professionals through treatment, education plans and prescriptions.

Educate patients with diet-related disorders on how they can improve their health and prevent disease by adopting healthier eating and drinking habits.

Provide dietary support to patients of all ages (from early-life to end-of-life care) in a variety of settings.

Work as part of a multi-disciplinary team to gain patients cooperation and understanding in following recommended dietary treatments.

Develop, implement and evaluate a seamless nutrition support service across the PCN, working with community and secondary care where appropriate, and aimed at continuously improving standards of patient care and wider multi-disciplinary team working.

Work with clinicians, multi-disciplinary team colleagues and external agencies to ensure the smooth transition of patients discharged from hospital back into primary care, so that they an continue their diet plan.

Make recommendations to PCN staff regarding changes to medications for the nutritional management of patients based on interpretation of biochemical, physiological and dietary requirements

Implement all aspects of effective clinical governance for own practice, including undertaking regular audit and evaluation, supervision and training.

Undertake a range of administrative tasks

Ensure delivery of best practice in clinical practice, caseload management, education, research, and audit, to achieve corporate PCN and local population objectives.

Your responsibilities

To take ownership of your given workload and prioritise accordingly to meet the required deadlines.

To have great attention to detail and be able to document patient records accurately.

Confidentiality

In the course of seeking treatment, patients entrust us with, or allow us to gather, sensitive information in relation to their health and other matters. They do so in confidence and have the right to expect that staff will respect their privacy and act appropriately.

In the performance of the duties outlined in this Job Description, the post-holder may have access to confidential information relating to patients and their carers, Practice staff and other healthcare workers. They may also have access to information relating to the Practice as a business organisation. All such information from any source is to be regarded as strictly confidential.

Information relating to patients, carers, colleagues, other healthcare workers or the business of the Practice may only be divulged to authorised persons in accordance with the Practice policies and procedures relating to confidentiality and the protection of personal and sensitive data.

To monitor service provision to ensure that services are being delivered in line with contract.

Equality and Diversity:

The post-holder will support the equality, diversity and rights of patients, carers and colleagues, to include:

Acting in a way that recognises the importance of peoples rights, interpreting them in a way that is consistent with Practice procedures and policies, and current legislation

Respecting the privacy, dignity, needs and beliefs of patients, carers and colleagues

Behaving in a manner which is welcoming to and of the individual, is non-judgemental and respects their circumstances, feelings priorities and rights.

Personal/Professional Development

The post-holder will participate in any training programme implemented by the Practice as part of this employment, such training to include:

Participation in an annual individual performance review, including taking responsibility for maintaining a record of own personal and/or professional development

Taking responsibility for own development, learning and performance and demonstrating skills and activities to others who are undertaking similar work.

Quality

The post-holder will strive to maintain quality within the Practice, and will:

Alert other team members to issues of quality and risk

Assess own performance and take accountability for own actions, either directly or under supervision

Contribute to the effectiveness of the team by reflecting on own and team activities and making suggestions on ways to improve and enhance the teams performance

Work effectively with individuals in other agencies to meet patients needs

Effectively manage own time, workload and resources.

Communication

The post-holder should recognise the importance of effective communication within the team and will strive to:

Communicate effectively with other team members

Communicate effectively with patients and carers

Recognise peoples needs for alternative methods of communication and respond accordingly.

Contribution to the Implementation of Services

The post-holder will

Apply Practice policies, standards and guidance

Discuss with other members of the team how the policies, standards and guidelines will affect own work

Participate in audit where appropriate.

Changes to this Job Description

The duties and responsibilities outlined in this list are neither definitive nor restrictive and may change in detail from time to time as the post develops to meet the changing needs of the surgery.

Person Specification

Registration

Essential

• Registered member of the Health and Care Professionals Council (HCPC)

Qualifications

Essential

• BSc or pre-reg MSc in Dietetics under a training programme approved by the British Dietetic Association

Disclosure and Barring Service Check

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.

UK Registration

Applicants must have current UK professional registration. For further information please see NHS Careers website (opens in a new window).

Employer details

Employer name

Trowbridge Health Centre

Address

Trowbridge Health Centre

Hammersmith Fields

Trowbridge

Wiltshire

BA14 8LW

Employer's website

https://www.trowbridgehealthcentre.co.uk/ (Opens in a new tab)