Neonatal Infant Feeding Lead

Job description

Job responsibilities

Clinical & Professional Responsibilities

Take the lead for planning, setting, maintaining and evaluating agreed standards for infant feeding including developing strategies for achieving and sustaining the UNICEF Baby Friendly Initiative status.

Work in accordance with the NSF for Maternity Services, NICE Guidelines and the Healthy Child Programme in developing services and standards of practice.

Promote the public health benefits of breast feeding and lead to improve the continuation of breast feeding in line with Baby Friendly Initiative Standards.

Create and review processes, pathways, policies and standard operating procedures to promote effective evidence-based approaches regarding infant feeding.

Lead the staff and build successful links between other professions to support and promote effective multi-disciplinary team working.

Provide clinical specialist infant feeding support and advice where required alongside existing workforce using expert knowledge and judgement to provide individualised care/ support packages.

Work in partnership with a range of local stakeholders to raise the level of knowledge and skills to effectively support women who chose to breast feed.

Be aware of and apply where possible, the recommendations of the Confidential Enquiries, the National Service Framework for Children, Young People and Maternity.

Educational Responsibilities

Ensure there is a training strategy to provide foundation and updates for all members of the multidisciplinary team.

To lead teaching, mentoring and assessment of staff in relation to infant feeding, providing written reports as required. Monitor training and maintain database.

Actively promote training opportunities that enable babies to receive breastmilk and breastfeed where possible.[FE1]

Identify the specific educational needs of individual parents and facilitate meeting those needs through the provision of specialist education, care and support.

Review information available for parents, ensuring that information given is based on nationally accepted standards and is made available in languages relevant to the locality in a variety of formats.

Develop a positive learning environment for students and staff which encourages everyone to learn from each other and from external good practice.

Contribute to the delivery of infant feeding training programmes and workshops for health professionals and women.

Provide support and advice for junior members of the BFI team.

To provide expert leadership and service design and provide support to managers, clinicians, patients and other stakeholders to enable a multi-disciplinary, multiagency approach to achieving BFI accreditation.

Be the trust lead for infant feeding on NICU and Transitional Care providing[FE1] expert opinion for breastfeeding.

Implement and embed clinical practice changes which demonstrate evidenced based individualised care and detection of emergent themes within clinical areas through localised robust governance process.

Ensure there is compliance with the WHO code of marketing breast milk substitutes.

Establish monitoring systems to review progress in breast feeding practice against the Baby Friendly initiative standards.

Provide regular verbal and written reports for line managers and commissioners as required.

Responsibility for the maintenance of standards attained, in preparation for re accreditation process, with succession planning for key roles associated with sustained success.

Be responsible for information processes to facilitate progress monitoring and reporting with specific attention to key performance indicators. And report with variance analysis when required.

To work in partnership with local services and providers to increase breastfeeding rates as part of improving health outcomes.

The job holder would be asked to liaise between teams, trouble shoot, use initiative and work collaboratively. They would need to be organised enough to manage their own workload and to plan regular audits of practice - both in the clinical setting and over the phone with staff and families. The results would then need to be used to inform and improve Key Performance Indicators which are then fed back to the wider team, up to board level.

The job holder will be required to demonstrate varied communication skills - Face to face, over the phone, via teams with staff, and cot side education for parents.

The job holder will be expected to teach on induction for NICU staff, and at learning events including QUASH.

They will have regular contact/interactions with patients and their families on sensitive and emotive subjects (infant feeding, bonding, separation etc.), and as they will need to know how to escalate concerns appropriately from a safeguarding point of view, and signpost to appropriate mental health agencies.

Research & Audit

Monitor and audit progress towards achieving the standards required to achieve BFI accreditation.

Participate in research and audit process relevant to the post to ensure the development of evidence based innovative practice.

Ensure that research findings and reports related to breast feeding are shared with the multi-disciplinary team.

Develop and implement a communication plan to ensure all stakeholders are aware of and appropriately engage with infant feeding.

Undertake any additional activities as deemed appropriate by the Director of Midwifery/ Divisional Chief Nurse/ Head of Midwifery.

Person Specification

Qualifications

Essential

• RGN/Dip HE in Child Health / RSCN / RM
• BFI course Embedding Baby Friendly Standards in Neonatal Care
• BFI Train the Trainer course
• Neonatal Intensive Care course/ENB 405 or equivalent
• Mentorship / ENB998
• Leadership Course
• Degree level education or equivalent knowledge and skills gain through any combination of alternative study or employment experience

Desirable

• Lactation Consultant

Experience

Essential

• Band 6 experience within a neonatal setting
• Clinical leadership experience
• Self-motivated and committed for continuous profession development
• Experience of organizing and implementing training programs for healthcare professionals
• Experience of audit process
• Experience of implementing policy and planning strategy
• UNICEF BFI knowledge

Desirable

• Currently Practicing as a Neonatal Nurse
• Group education and presentation skills
• Experience of research process
• Experience of leading a Neonatal unit though the BFI Accreditation journey
• Experience of Chairing BFI Operations and Strategy meetings

Skill

Essential

• Able to communicate effectively to ensure high standards of care, treatment, service or support as appropriate to your role
• Able to develop, teach and facilitate learning in the classroom and clinical environments
• Able to give effective feedback and feedforward to NAAs
• Able to respond to individual learning needs

Desirable

• Experience of Word, Excel and Powerpoint
• Experience of using databases to input and analyse data

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.

Certificate of Sponsorship

Applications from job seekers who require current Skilled worker sponsorship to work in the UK are welcome and will be considered alongside all other applications. For further information visit the UK Visas and Immigration website (Opens in a new tab).

From 6 April 2017, skilled worker applicants, applying for entry clearance into the UK, have had to present a criminal record certificate from each country they have resided continuously or cumulatively for 12 months or more in the past 10 years. Adult dependants (over 18 years old) are also subject to this requirement. Guidance can be found here Criminal records checks for overseas applicants (Opens in a new tab).

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

Ashford & St. Peter's Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust

Address

St. Peter's Hospital

Guildford Road

Chertsey

KT16 0PZ

Employer's website

https://www.ashfordstpeters.nhs.uk/ (Opens in a new tab)