Community Paediatric Dietitian

Job responsibilities

Job Purpose

To provide a nutrition and dietetic service for infants, children and young people in the local community.

To provide professional dietetic advice and liaise with primary health care teams, community health professionals and other local agencies.

To promote evidence based dietary guidelines in relation to maternal and child health.

To provide education and training for health care professionals, other relevant professions, student dietitians, patients and the general public.

Dimensions

To mentor and train clinical staff and student dietitian.

To be an expert source of nutritional advice in paediatrics for patients, families, nursing and other health professionals.

Support appropriate patients registered with Nottingham City GP Practices, as defined by inclusion criteria for the service.

To offer a specialist resource to health care professionals working in Nottingham City.

Key Responsibilities

1. Clinical

Receiving and interpreting referrals from a variety of health professionals in accordance with the referral criteria.

Undertaking dietetic clinics in a variety of primary care and community settings.

Providing telephone consultations to parents and children as required.

Communicating relevant dietary and lifestyle advice effectively, in an understandable form supported by appropriate literature/ diet sheets.

Utilising counselling, motivational and negotiating skills to facilitate behaviour change.

Communicating therapeutic dietary advice and treatment recommendations to a variety of health professionals using a combination of verbal and written reports.

Maintaining accurate and comprehensive patient records.

Managing own clinical caseload unsupervised.

Recording patient notes using a paperless system (SystmOne) and undertaking additional data collection e.g. use of other packages to collect patient data statistics.

Use of dietary analysis package to analyse patient food diaries - DietPlan.

Contributing to regular paediatric team clinical supervision sessions.

2. Education and Training

Empowering front line health professionals to give dietary advice to their patients.

Participating in the delivery of evidence-based training on maternal, infant and childhood nutrition, incorporating the provision of relevant educational materials and evaluation.

Training and assessment of dietetic students during their community dietetic placement.

Participating in the training programmes of other health professionals and students e.g. shadowing opportunities, tutorials, lectures, workshops and seminars.

Responding to ad-hoc requests from professionals or patient support groups for dietary education sessions and displays on a variety of topics.

3. Professional Advice and Liaison

Working with primary health care teams and other professional groups to ensure consistent and appropriate nutrition and dietetic advice is available throughout the community.

Promoting evidence-based dietary guidelines for healthy eating and therapeutic diets.

Responding to requests for dietetic input to specific health events or to individual groups requiring information.

Acting as a source of unbiased, up-to-date information on nutrition to health professionals and other agencies.

4. Competence to Practice

Meeting the requirements of the Health and Care Professions Council and maintaining professional registration.

Working within the Health and Care Professions Council, British Dietetic Association and local codes of conduct.

Participating in professional or nutrition-related research, evaluation and audit.

A commitment to continuing professional development, including the undertaking of relevant formal and informal postgraduate training and collection of evidence of competency to practice.

Participating in individual performance reviews.

Involvement in risk management assessments as required.

Complying with Nottingham CityCare policies, procedures and statutory regulations.

Qualifications

Essential

• Qualified Dietitian (4 year degree, post-graduate diploma or equivalent).
• Registered dietitian with the Health and Care Professions Council.
• Broad variety of post registration work experience as a registered dietitian.
• Accurate keyboard and IT skills for record keeping, data inputting, word processing, internet access and dietary analysis.

Desirable

• BDA Paediatric Dietetics Course Module 1 and 2.
• Postgraduate accredited courses on nutrition/dietetic topics e.g., food allergy, obesity, autism.
• Experience of working in partnership with local authority and other non-NHS agencies.

Special Requirements

Essential

• Full driving licence and the ability to travel between locations.

Experience

Essential

• Broad variety of post registration work experience as a registered dietitian.
• Previous clinical experience working with children requiring a variety of therapeutic diets.
• Experience of working in a multidisciplinary health care setting.

Desirable

• Experience working with Clinical systems i.e., SystmOne.
• Experience of working in the field of food allergy
• Experience of working in primary care and community settings.

Skills and Attributes

Essential

• Knowledge of national targets and reports relevant to food, and nutrition and other relevant guidelines (e.g., NICE guidance, SACN, BDA Paediatric Group and FAISG position statements, Change 4 Life.
• Knowledge of the nutritional requirements of different population groups, with emphasis on infants, children and young people.
• Appreciation of health inequalities in relation to food.
• Demonstration of good written skills
• Experience in communicating effectively with staff from a variety of professions on a one to one or group basis; able to do presentations to large groups.
• Experience in communicating complex information in an understandable form to patients and carers on a one to one or group basis.
• Awareness of communication needs of people from differing cultures and with differing physical and learning abilities.
• Ability to react sensitively and professionally to unforeseen clinical and non-clinical situations.
• Ability to work unsupervised.
• Ability to manage own caseload.
• Good time management skills, able to meet deadlines.
• Demonstration of commitment to professional and personal development.
• Confident, self-motivated and adaptable.
• Ability to reflect and appraise own and peer performance.

Desirable

• Experience of using behavioural change and counselling techniques to promote lifestyle changes with individuals and or groups.
• Experience of using Systmone for record keeping purposes.
• Experience in planning, delivering, and evaluating education and training programmes to patients, students and a variety of staff groups.
• Experience in project development, implementation, and evaluation.
• City & Guilds 7407 teaching certificate (or equivalent).
• Clinical Supervisory Skills course.
• Published reports and papers.
• Advanced counselling skills.
• Motivational interviewing skills.

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).