Dietitian Band 5

We are seeking an enthusiastic Dietitian to join our friendly department at the Queen Elizabeth Hospital, Woolwich. The role will suit a newly qualified or experienced Dietitian who is organised, innovative and keen to develop their skills in a busy acute setting. You will have support from a Specialist Dietitian and the wider team of Specialist and Advanced Specialist Dietitians, Dietetic Assistants and Administrator.
The post holder will join a team that covers a range of wards; including Acute Medical, Orthopaedic, Cardiology, Frailty and Medical/Surgical Assessment Units. Within the team there will be opportunities to run a weekly outpatients clinic, health promotion presentations and deliver staff training.
Contract to end 30th April 2025, You can expect to work closely with other health care professionals to provide excellent patient care. You will be involved in ward rounds, MDT discussion, nutrition education, assessment and care planning., Our people are our greatest asset. When we feel supported and happy at work, this positivity reaches those very people we are here for, the patients. Engaged employees perform at their best and our Equality, Diversity & Inclusion (EDI) initiatives contribute to cultivate a culture of engagement. We have four staff networks, a corporate EDI Team and a suite of programmes and events which aim to insert the 5 aspirations:
1. Improving representation at senior levels of staff with disabilities, from black, Asian, and ethnic minorities background, identify as LGBTQ+ and women, through improved recruitment and leadership development
2. Widening access (anchor institution) and employability
3. Improving the experience of staff with disability
4. Improving the EDI literacy and confidence of trust staff through training and development
5. Making equalities mainstream, To provide an inpatient dietetic service to Acute Medical, Orthopaedic, Cardiology, and Frailty wards, under the direction and guidance of the Specialist Dietitian. To assess and monitor patients, offering nutritional support and dietary education. Provide dietetic input to the multidisciplinary team and advice for the catering staff to support the smooth flow of patients through the ward. Involved in provision of an Outpatient Dietetic Clinic. To contribute to service development through quality improvement projects, audit, patient experience monitoring and research.
Key Result Areas & Performance:
+ Act as an independent practitioner and be professionally and legally accountable and responsible for all aspects of own work including a clinical caseload.
+ Work independently to undertake nutritional assessments and calculate nutritional requirements of patients using anthropometry and taking into account medical, social and cultural factors.
+ Communicate evidence based nutritional and dietary advice in an understandable form.
+ Use communication and counselling skills such as reflective listening, open questioning, empathy, explanation and reassurance to communicate dietary intervention to patients and their carers.
+ Gain valid consent to treatment and negotiate change with patients by breaking down barriers, using motivational skills, to enable them to achieve dietary targets set.
+ Monitor and review nutritional care plans against outcome measures and adjust care plan to facilitate achievement of goals.
+ Undertake designated outpatient clinics.
+ Consult with peers when dealing with new or unfamiliar clinical specialities.
+ Participate in multidisciplinary team meetings, as appropriate.
+ Ensure safe and timely discharge of patients on enteral tube feeding by liaising with appropriate internal and external agencies.
+ Provide dietetic cover to other wards during periods of annual leave/sick leave within clinical capability.
+ Accurately record all assessment and interventions in medical notes in line with Trust policy.
+ Communicate with other agencies about ongoing patient care after discharge.
Work force
+ Receive and triage referrals
+ Decide daily on priorities for own work area, balancing patient related and professional demands.
+ Contribute to working parties and departmental meetings.
+ Complete allocated projects and meet deadlines.
+ Record patient activity data.
+ Supervise Dietetic assistants
+ Share the responsibility for maintaining departmental resource files.
+ Support colleagues with cover arrangements and excess workflow in other wards
+ Develop processes to ensure clinical assessment, monitoring and reporting is completed within working day., + Contribute to the training of pre-registration dietetic students on clinical placement (subject to six months post-registration experience) by:
+ participating in the development and revision of the training program
+ acting as a role model
+ undertaking clinical supervision, tutorials, feedback and assessment
+ Assist in delivering formal and informal training to other health care professionals and staff groups.
+ Plan, deliver and evaluate defined patient group, teaching sessions
+ Contribute to the development of educational resources, which are evidence based and acceptable to patients and carers.
Communications and Relationships
The Post holder will impart sensitive information to patients and their relatives. The Post Holder will present and share clinical information with other healthcare professionals and students. The post holder will have daily communication with:
+ Patients/carers
+ Dietetic colleagues & other healthcare professionals
+ Students - dietetic and non-dietetic
+ Support staff
+ Consultants, GPs and primary care teams
+ Specialist groups
+ External agencies - social services, nutrition companies
Clinical governance:
+ Work within the Health & Care Professions Council's Standards of Conduct, Performance and Ethics and Standards of Proficiency.
+ Attend trust induction training and mandatory training programmes.
+ Identify personal training needs through participation in regular continuous professional development activities and individual performance review.
+ Develop skills by attending relevant training courses and conferences.
+ Maintain a personal portfolio as evidence of competence to practice.
+ Undertake defined audit projects as part of clinical practice with support.
+ Contribute to the development of departmental and evidence based treatment policies, guidelines, standards and protocols.
We reserve the right to close the post before the stated closing date, please apply early. We do not contact applicants with the outcome of the shortlisting. If you have been shortlisted, you will receive an invite to an assessment day or interview.
As a local employer and anchor institution we work closely with our community to recruit locally and we welcome applications from the widest variety of people to ensure our workforce are reflective of the local communities which we serve. We encourage all suitable candidates to apply including if you are Black, Asian or other ethnic minorities, live with a disability (visible or not) or are LGBT+. We have a number of active staff networks including Disability, LGBT+, Multicultural Inclusion and Women's staff networks to bring staff together and celebrate diversity across our whole workforce.
Please note, not all roles will meet the criteria for a skilled worker visa.

Lewisham and Greenwich NHS Trust, (LGT), is a community-focused provider of local and acute care, delivering high-quality services to over one million people living across the London boroughs of Lewisham, Greenwich, and Bexley. We provide whole-life care and are here to support our communities to live healthier lives as well as taking care of them when they need us the most.
Employing almost 7,500 colleagues, affectionately known as Team LGT, we provide services at Queen Elizabeth Hospital in Woolwich, University Hospital Lewisham, and at over a dozen community settings in Lewisham. We also provide some services at Queen Mary's Hospital in Sidcup.
We have recently launched our new vision and values to mark the LGT10 - the tenth anniversary of our Trust forming in 2013. Our trust vision is to be exceptional. In the quality of our patient care; our support for colleagues; and in the difference we make through our partnerships and in our communities.
To achieve this we value Respect, Compassion, and Inclusion; Being accountable over staying comfortable; Listening over always knowing best; and Succeeding together over achieving alone. You can read more about our visions and values here
Our hospitals and community sites provide a wide range of inpatient and outpatient services, as well as emergency and planned care. The Trust is rated as "good" or "outstanding" in over three-quarters of the services inspected by the Care Quality Commission.
Every year our work includes performing 10,000 procedures in our theatres; bringing seven and a half thousand new lives into the world; carrying out 570,000 visits to patients in their homes or communities and providing emergency care for more than 300,000 patients arriving in our busy Urgent and Emergency Departments.
LGT is a centre for the education and training of medical students enrolled with King's College London's GKT School of Medical Education. We are a training centre for nurses, midwives and allied health professionals. We are pioneering new roles that will support the changing needs of our patients and are one of the largest employers of physician associates in the country.
We are committed to working with our partners to deliver the best outcomes for our local communities. This means playing an active role in the South East London Integrated Care System (ICS), and in formal partnerships including the South East London Acute Provider Collaborative, provider partnerships with our local mental health trusts and borough-based boards of the ICS in Bexley, Greenwich and Lewisham., All team members are supported to participate in audit, service evaluations, Quality Improvement projects and CPD. Band 5 Dietitians have the option to enrol on our Preceptorship program to help further enhance their professionalism and development.
The Nutrition and Dietetic Service in Lewisham and Greenwich NHS Trust has a team of approximately 35 staff including, Dietitians, Dietetic Assistants, and support team staff covering the two acute hospitals in Lewisham and Greenwich, and Lewisham community.
This post offers an exciting opportunity for a newly qualified or experienced band 5 Dietitian to work in the friendly Nutrition and Dietetic department at Queen Elizabeth Hospital, Woolwich,
The post is fixed term for 6 months.