Clinical Nurse Specialist, Community

Job responsibilities

•As a Clinical Nurse Specialist, you will work within a multi-disciplinary team providing specialist advice and care to hospice patients and their families

•Through holistic assessment, provide information, advice, psychosocial and spiritual care to patients with palliative and end of life care needs, supporting their families and carers, liaising and referring on as necessary to appropriate health and social care professionals

•Work in partnership with those receiving care, helping them to access relevant health and social care, information and support when they need it. Support people to access, identify, appraise and interpret complex information, to enable them to determine their own future

•Use advanced communication skills in delivering highly emotive information clearly, sensitively and unambiguously with staff, patients, families and professionals by face-to-face, telephone and/or electronic means

•Work collaboratively as part of the multi-disciplinary team (MDT) sharing the clinical caseload of patients/carers within the locality for patients who have complex palliative care needs to ensure efficient and timely care is delivered

•To work as part of the MDT but also work autonomously making decisions and recommendations involving highly complex factors, seeking advice from colleagues or/and clinical leadership team when required, in order to make sound decisions around palliative and end of life care

•To support management in training and mentoring a multidisciplinary workforce from novice to expert to work as one team

•To support and implement any streamlined locality processes and services by embedding quality improvement methodology including clear outcome measures to produce efficient and highly performing community services

•To support the Hospice in building strong relationships with external partners and stakeholders and promote the good reputation of the Hospice e.g. local trusts, CCG, health and social care partners, businesses and voluntary organisations

•To role model the values of Farleigh Hospice and support others within the organisation to do so by recognising positive behaviours, challenging poor behaviour, encouraging and supporting change

•To be visible and credible with the ability to listen and respond to staff and to patient and family issues and insights

•To communicate effectively with all staff across the organisation to promote one team, one vision and collaborate with colleagues as appropriate to deliver this

•To Work as part of a team and provide clinical cover during the absence of other team members and ensure the priorities of the service are met especially in times of high demand. To adapt to the pressures of changing demands day to day

•To deputise for the Locality Care Team Manager when necessary in relation to clinical leadership

•To participate in the development of Hospice response to any identified changes in the supportive and palliative care needs of our population and engage with patients, carers and external professionals positively sharing any agreed change in service offer

•To demonstrate skill in conflict resolution and use competent negotiation skills when dealing with difficult or challenging situations such as managing patient/carers unmet expectations

•To engage and collaborate with external partners to develop locality-based joined up services using quality improvement methodology

•To manage your own performance as well as identifying existing skills and competencies and ensuring that professional development plans are tailored to the changing capability requirements of the organisation

•To provide specialist advice, education and support to professionals/staff regarding the management and care of people with specialist palliative care needs

•To promote the continuing development of specialist knowledge, skills and attitudes to more junior members of staff in relation to end of life care including palliative care and frailty competencies  

•To support, guide and motivate junior members of staff to deliver their best through effective use of the staff support matrix, through cluster group leadership as required

•To maintain own professional standards and to lead by example by participating in supervision, professional registration, and the delivery of personal development plans ensuring compliance with professional development and mandatory training at all times 

•To participate in EOL and Palliative Care educational programmes. To give feedback from attended education programmes/study days to the multi-professional team

•To carry out coordination duties as requested

•To assist in recruitment to ensure appropriate staffing levels are in place through effective recruitment and rostering 

Skills/Ability/Knowledge

Essential

• Proven ability of successfully working with people and handling difficult and complex situations
• Ability to work under pressure, manage own stress and emotional responses and be aware of stress in others
• Ability to use a range of IT systems and software, including Word, Excel, PowerPoint, Office 365 and electronic patient record systems (such as SystmOne)as well as virtual system se.g. Zoom, MS Teams
• Proven ability to reflect and critically appraise own performance
• Ability to motivate self and others and to lead by example
• Able to effectively resolve professional and ethical issues
• Ability to prioritise issues and tasks and manage own workload
• Excellent oral/written communication and interpersonal skills
• Effective analytical and judgemental skills to deal with complex cases

Qualifications

Essential

• Nurse registration
• Post-registration qualification in cancer/palliative care or long-term conditions/or relevant subject
• Evidence of continued professional development
• Advanced Communications Skills Training
• Leadership training/qualification

Desirable

• Non-medical prescribing and Advanced Clinical Assessment skills

Experience

Essential

• Proven post registration experience
• Demonstrable experience in the delivery of complex specialist palliative care
• Experience of holistic assessment and complex symptom management
• Experience of multi-disciplinary team working
• Experience of working unsupervised, manage different patients and make decisions related to complex care planning

Qualities and Attributes

Essential

• Passionate about Hospice Care and enthusiasm for the vision of the organisation
• Team player who can work as part of our One Team ethos
• High level of emotional intelligence and resilience
• Flexible approach to work, with ability to work out of hours on occasions
• Committed to the development of palliative care skills in others
• Committed to working in partnership with people their relatives and carers other organisations and agencies
• Driving licence and car owner (community)
• Satisfactory Criminal Records Disclosure

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).