Birmingham - Nutrition and Hydration Support Worker
Sandwell & West Birmingham NHS Trust is a friendly, integrated healthcare provider focused on improving the life chances and health outcomes of our diverse population.
We have three strategic objectives:
People: To cultivate and sustain happy, productive and engaged staff.Patients: To be good or outstanding at everything we do.
Population: To work seamlessly with partners to improve lives.
We run services from Midland Metropolitan University Hospital, Sandwell Health Campus, City Health Campus, Rowley Regis Community Hospital, Birmingham & Midland Eye Centre, The Lyng and Leasowes Intermediate Care Centre. Our GP practices and community teams provide care in schools, healthcare centres and at home.
Developing and caring for our People is fundamental. We were one of the first Trusts to provide the Real Living Wage, as well as a Live and Work scheme to support people at risk of homelessness into paid work and training. We offer a range of staff benefits, health & wellbeing support and will help you to bring your ambition to life through our bespoke training and development programmes.As “People” is one of our three strategic objectives, we make a continued commitment to prioritise support for all our colleagues.
Healthcare services have a significant impact on the environment. We are committed to embedding sustainable practices. We expect all colleagues to support the delivery of our Green Strategic Plan and to drive positive changes in their department.
Job overview
The Nutrition and Dietetics Service at Sandwell and West Birmingham NHS Trust are excited to recruit a to a nutrition and hydration therapy support worker/ assistant practitioner to work primarily with community based Older Adults.
We believe that as dietitians, nutrition nurses and support staff:
- We enable recovery
- We empower quality of life
- We bring independence and dignity to our patients
Candidates will be joining a service at a time of considerable opportunity and this job should appeal to candidates wishing to pursue a clinical apprenticeship in Dietetics, in addition to those seeking to build on their experience so far.
Main duties of the job
You'll be joining our ambitious, forward-thinking therapies structure and the duties of this exciting role include supporting community based care to service users. This may include education, training and promotion of the importance of nutrition and hydration at a care homes; advocating for patient meal times, identifying service users with swallowing difficulties or who are at risk of malnutrition and dehydration and referring onto the dietetic/ speech and language therapy
services.
The post holder will be provided with training and will be expected to manage a community based caseload and develop skills in first line nutritional support, use of oral nutritional supplements and meal time optimisation. With training supported.
The role will be varied and it is likely that audit will be a key part of the role to support the optimal provision of food and drink to service users in care homes, or their own homes on a day to day basis. This is an exciting opportunity to further build on and develop your skills.
Working for our organisation
The nutrition and Dietetics service at Sandwell and West Birmingham NHS Trust is an integrated team of over 40 dietitians, nutrition nurses, assistant practitioners and dietetic support workers working across the acute and community environment.We have regular departmental meetings, clinical supervision sessions and education meetings. Continuing professional development is promoted and supported.
The Department trains student nurses from across the region and student dietitians from Coventry, Birmingham City University and Birmingham University College across the full range of placements. There is excellent administrative support, IT facilities and access to modern Trust library facilities.
Detailed job description and main responsibilities
Please see attached documents for further details of the job including main responsibilities.
As a team, we live our core Trust values of ambition, respect and compassion. Our trust champions nutrition and hydration as a fundamental of care and takes a strongly integrated, person-centred approach where independence and early intervention is promoted and encouraged using ‘What matters to you?’ principles. We are looking for a suitably aspirational candidate who will share these core values and behaviours.
Interested applicants are encouraged to make contact to arrange a conversation or an informal visit to further understand the role.
Person specification
Qualifications
Essential criteria- Foundation Degree/ NVQ3 or equivalent
- NHS care certificate or willingness to work towards this
- Dietetic Support Worker Award
- Level A RCSLT Dysphagia Framework Competency
Experience
Essential criteria- Broad experience of working in a clinical role supporting therapies in a relevant setting
- Broad experience of working in a clinical area relevant to dietetics and speech and language therapy
- Experience working in a clinical multi-disciplinary team
- Experience of preparing and delivering training sessions
- Experience of working directly within community, care homes or in-patient older persons care
- Experience working as an SLT/Dietetic therapy support worker
We encourage all prospective applicants to discuss their individual circumstances with the Recruiting Manager as part of the on-boarding process.