Dietetic Support Worker - Home Enteral Feeding and Clinical Community

· To support the day-to-day care of patients in the community who are tube fed or who are at risk of malnutrition (for example, unintentional weight loss, poor food intake). The adult patient caseload includes those who are housebound or who live in care homes. Patients have a wide range of clinical problems including dementia, frailty, pressure damage, COPD (Chronic Obstructive Pulmonary Disease), stroke, Motor Neurone Disease (MND), neurological problems, learning disability etc.
· To provide administrative support to the team of Community Clinical Dietitians and to help coordinate patient referrals received by the team., Verbal and written skills to be able to communicate effectively on a daily basis with:

• Head of Nutrition & Dietetic Services and Dietetic Team Leads


• Dietitians, Dietetic Support Workers and student dietitians


• Multi-disciplinary team members including Nutrition Team


• Nutrition Nurse Specialists and HEF Multidisciplinary team (MDT)


• Paediatric MDT and Schools


• HEF Contract Provider and Nurses, Company Representatives and Managers


• Adult and Paediatric HEF Dietitians


• MND Coordinator, Palliative Care Teams and other Specialist Clinicians.


• Patients, parents and carers


• Care Homes


• Care Home residents and carers


• Community teams including intermediate care and community nursing.


• Primary care teams


• Nursing staff


• Admin and Clerical staff


• Other staff across the Trust, health and social care community.


• Nutrition Company Representatives


• Feed Manufacturers and Providers, included contracted HEF service provider

Planning and organisation
+ To provide administrative, clinical and project management support to the HEF and Community Dietitians.
+ To manage own caseload of selected patients with nutritional care plans and feeding regimens with support and supervision from the Dietitians.
+ To co-ordinate patient referrals to the community clinical team. These are received through a number of routes, including via team email and post
+ To register and upload referrals which are triaged by Dietitians, and maintain up to date patient electronic notes using SystmOne
+ To communicate and liase with referrers about individual patients
+ To plan and organise own workload efficiently and to highlight any concerns to the Team Lead/ Head of Service.
+ To manage own time and organise diary, including agile working.
+ To organise meetings include the collation and distribution of agendas, taking and transcribing formal minutes, and room bookings.
+ To manage team diaries and appointments including meetings with outside nutrition company representatives.
Responsibility and accountability
+ To exercise judgement when dealing with enquiries from patients, carers, care homes and health professionals, understanding own limitations and when to seek support from other members of the team.
+ To cross cover some duties for other DSW with the Nutrition and Dietetics department or members of the Administration Team, when required.
+ To demonstrate initiative and motivation as a team player and be flexible in understanding the need to prioritise individual workloads and the workloads of colleagues.
+ To report any accident/incident/equipment defects/malfunction, or complaints to the Head of Service or one of the Team Leads as soon as possible.
Responsibility for patients and client care
+ To liaise regularly with the HEF and Community dietitians about patients under the care of the team
+ To respond to queries and phone calls to the team, and respond to requests for information in a sensitive and supportive manner.
+ Carry out initial screening and information gathering using a standard template reporting back to the relevant clinician for further action if necessary. Directing to sources of first line advice.
+ To use an agreed pro-forma to undertake telephone reviews for patients under the care of the team.
+ To support patients, who are on tube feeds and discharged from hospital to home, with support from the Dietitians.
+ Meet weekly with Dietitians, Specialist Nutrition Nursing team and Enteral Nutrition Clinical Nurse Advisor to discuss issues with current patients, planned feeding tubes, training needs etc. To actively contribute to MDT discussions
+ Visit patients at home to review and monitor weight as requested by a Dietitian.
+ To monitor and accurately record patient intake of food, fluid, nutritional supplements and enteral feeds, and take diet histories.
+ To liaise with dietitians and catering staff (e.g. care homes) regarding patient's progress, the provision of therapeutic diets and snacks.
+ Use nutritional screening tools, such as Malnutrition Universal Screening Tool (MUST) and promote the use of these tools where appropriate.
+ Organise, attend and support outpatient clinics, and community visits including school visits for the paediatric HEF patients with the Dietitian.
+ To be a patient advocate and support the most nutritionally vulnerable and frail members of the community.
+ Support/provide training for other healthcare professions and patient groups
+ To contribute to the education of multidisciplinary groups, patients, families, carers and general public as appropriate.
+ To liaise with enteral feed company representatives regarding nutritional products, enteral feeds and feed deliveries as required.
+ To maintain up to date and accurate patient records.
+ To be aware of, identify and escalate any safeguarding concerns observed to the Team Lead or Head of Nutrition and Dietetics.
+ To provide support to care homes where quality or safeguarding issues have been identified, with the support of the Dietitian.
+ Organise outpatient and school clinics for the paediatric HEF children, including attending and supporting the dietitian at the outpatient HEF clinics.
Policy and service responsibility
+ To maintain up to date knowledge of Trust policies and procedures as found on the intranet as well as those specific to the Dietetic Department .e.g. lone working.
+ To comply with Health and Safety regulations and ensure a safe working environment
+ Book and maintain own annual mandatory training
+ To maintain standards of confidentiality
+ To contribute to audit projects which will include clinical data collection and collation to demonstrate outcomes of care and satisfaction survey, such as HEF audits.
+ To contribute to the writing of policies, resources and guidelines relevant to this role, led by the Community Dietetic team.
+ To provide resources such as patient information leaflets, feeding regimens, recipes and menu plans.
+ To contribute to the wider service development of the Dietetic Community Clinical Team.
+ To promote the role and value of Community Dietetics in all aspects of nutritional care.
Responsibility for equipment and other resources
+ No budgetary control but responsible for the effective and appropriate use of resources
+ To be responsible for anthropometric and body composition equipment such as weighing scales (e.g. oversee annual calibration and maintenance)
+ To ensure equipment under his/her control is maintained in good working order and report any malfunction to the Team Lead /Head of Service.
+ Monitor and report HEF spend using invoices as part of the Enteral Feed Contract, with support from the Dietitians.
+ To maintain and update the internal and external department website with support about content from the Dietitians.
Responsibility for supervision, leadership and management
+ To assist, if required, in the training of students on clinical placement and of other dietetic support workers
+ No other supervision or leadership responsibilities
+ To actively support own wellbeing, as well as to support the wellbeing of the other members of the team.
Information technology and administrative duties
+ To complete general office administration such as typing clinical and non-clinical correspondence, and emailing letters, filing, booking in visits/appointments, opening post, arranging appointments/sending Microsoft teams invites, putting together training packs, sending written information to patients, care homes and GP practices
+ Use Microsoft Teams software to arrange and attend meetings. To organise meetings and take meeting notes.
+ To use SystmOne and other Trust IT systems
+ Register patients and upload referral details onto Systm One
+ To communicate via email, social media and other internal IT systems.
+ To register and make amendments to tube feeds and feeding equipment on electronic ordering systems. To undertake any other clinical support and administrative duties that may be required by the Dietitians or team lead.
Responsibility for research and development
+ To be responsible for own continued development and be proactive within annual Achievement Reviews and monthly 121s with supervising Dietitian.
+ To identify areas of service improvement and development, with support from project lead, for example, audit or project work
+ Produce reports/summaries to monitor, evaluate and provide feedback about the service, with support from the team.
You will be joining the organisation at an exciting time. As the first fully integrated care organisation in England, we are working to improve the way we deliver safe, high-quality health and social care. We have a positive and vibrant working atmosphere, we are proud of our investment in our staff both in terms of developing potential career skills and valuing people.
If you provide support to a family member or friend with health or care needs, we aim to be a Carer-friendly employer. We have a 'Staff Carers' policy which includes flexible working where possible and a Carer's Passport scheme that links you into support and discounts.
IMPORTANT INFORMATION
+ We reserve the right to close vacancies early if we receive a high volume of applications. Please apply promptly
+ Please read the job description and tailor your application to reflect the role
+ Correspondence will be via Trac, text and email. Please check your email and Trac account regularly.
+ Applicants with no previous NHS experience will ordinarily be appointed to the minimum of the band
+ If you have not received an invitation to interview within 28 days of the closing date, please assume that your application has been unsuccessful on this occasion
+ It is your responsibility to assist us in the timely receipt of appropriate references
The Trust is committed to preventing discrimination, valuing diversity and achieving equality of opportunity. No person (staff, patient or public) will receive less favourable treatment on the grounds of the nine protected characteristics as governed by the Equality Act 2010. If you require support you can obtain this from our Equality Business Forum which has representatives from all protected groups.

We are looking for a Dietetic Support Worker to work alongside the Community Clinical Dietitians to support patients living in the community in Torbay and South Devon . The clinical team provides a dietetic service and nutritional care to patients in their own homes, in care homes and other community settings. Patients require nutritional support orally or via feeding tubes (Home Enteral Feeding) and include frailty and older people with multiple long-term conditions. The HEF service covers adults and children.
This is an ideal post for someone with an interest in nutrition or has experience working in a care environment.
You will be a highly valued member of the team who is passionate about patient care, with excellent communication and administration skills, whilst working flexibly to support patients and each other within the team.
A proportion of your time will be spent in rural areas, and you must be able to travel independently and have access to a car on a daily basis.

· The Community Clinical Dietitians are a friendly, supportive, proactive, and professional team, which has increased in size over recent years following investment in a number of areas.
· The Community Clinical team is part of the wider dietetic team including Acute, Diabetes, Paediatrics, Lifestyles, and Cancer Services. The team has over 40 staff members - dietitians, dietetic support workers and admin support.
· The team is actively involved with training of student Dietitians from Plymouth University.