Senior Complex Needs Nurse

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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.

Job overview

Come and join the Lewisham and Greenwich NHS Trust integrated

Lewisham Children and Young People's Community Nursing Service (LewCYPCNS)

The Lewisham & Greenwich NHS Trust Children's and Young People Community Services was given a rating of "outstanding" in the most recent CQC report.

Make a difference with us. We are looking to expand our Children's Complex Needs Nursing Team and recruit a highly skilled, forward thinking and enthusiastic children's nurse. Our friendly team is looking for a registered children's nurse with experience in caring for children with complex needs, particularly in the community.

Based from Kaleidoscope, Lewisham's dedicated Children's Centre. Our passionate and dedicated team work collaboratively with community paediatrician's, therapist staff and education staff to ensure the best possible outcomes for children and their families is achieved.

Main duties of the job

As a Senior Nurse you will have a key role in empowering families/carers, leading care planning, training and multi disciplinary liaison for children and young people with a range of needs within their home, school and community settings. You will work autonomously and as part of a team fully dedicated to the needs of children and young people with SLD, PMLD, sensory impairment, learning and behaviour difficulties.

Working for our organisation

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

Detailed job description and main responsibilities

• To act as an exemplar and exercise clinical leadership in the delivery and evaluation of healthcare interventions for children and young people with complex needs in community settings e.g. Home, school, nursery.
• Be confident and competent in the management of a wide range of complex care needs. E.g. ASD, Seizures, Airway management, Enteral feeding, allergy, tracheostomy care
• Provide training on the above
• Working across the community setting provide assessment and planning of care, supporting colleagues in the management and delivery of direct care including the administration of medicines, enteral feeds and management, dressings etc in the special school and nursery and other community settings.
• Safeguarding of children, provide assessment of need, conference reports, attend and participate in safeguarding meetings including child protection conferences, core groups and strategy planning meetings.
• Demonstrate an understanding and promote awareness of abuse issues relating to children with disability.
• Provide skilled continence assessments, advise families and other professionals on the promotion and management of continence for children and young people.
• Responsible for specialist assessment, planning, implementing, supervising and evaluating programmes of care for children and young people (0-19 years) with bladder and bowel dysfunction and complex needs. Providing each with an individualised holistic programme of care.
• To provide nurse led clinics for treatment and management of nocturnal enuresis.
• Work collaboratively within the Complex Needs Nursing Team and with the wider children's services including special needs schools, portage, health visitors, school nurses, paediatricians, therapists an education to ensure effective joint working in a team around the child approach.
• Support the team leader in ensuring that all children and young people with complex care needs have up to date care plan in place in the nursery or school setting. Maintain a positive, effective and timely communication with all appropriate professionals, parents, carers.
• Act a key worker.
• Support the recruitment and retention of team members.
• Stand in for the team leader at meetings required. Provide support and line management for junior team members.
• Be a competent computer user with word and excel, be able to collate data.
• To Use RIO electronic record system.
• Provide counselling and support for families in managing their child's diagnosis.
• Develop knowledge of support networks that are available and how Disability Living allowance can support families where a child has additional needs.
• Lead the development of a designated care pathway within the team.
• Demonstrate an understanding of the issues impacting on families relating to the identified pathway. Work closely with young people and their families in the development of care pathways.
• Support the team in the ongoing development and delivery of Transitional Health Care Planning for children and young people across the 0-19 age range and transferring to adult services.
• Support the team in the ongoing development and delivery of the Continuing care pathway working under the guidance of the specialist nurse for continuing care and within the MAPP process.
• Support joint working on health promotion for pupils with complex needs with teachers and other professionals working in both mainstream and special needs schools. Work closely with the Healthy School Partnership to ensure the public health needs of school aged children with complex needs are addressed.
• Deliver national immunisation programmes and promotion of these in schools as set out by the DH.
• Demonstrate Knowledge of key professionals involved in the management of children and young people with complex needs and life limiting conditions.
• To act as an educator and advisor to other community professionals including health visiting and school nursing teams on care pathways e.g. Autistic spectrum disorder, Cerebral Palsy, Allergy and Epilepsy to enable staff to deliver high quality care within community settings.
• To keep staff updated on current, national and local initiatives that impact on children special needs in Lewisham, E.g. Lewisham Children and young people's plan 2009-2012, NSF and ECM, Aiming High, Better care Better Lives and Framework for continuing Care (draft 2008).
• Deliver training in nursery, school and other community settings (e.g. respite, holiday clubs) to non-clinical staff in the management and delivery of specific aspects of care and administration of medicines. Asses understanding of training at a level set out as agreed in individual guidelines (e.g. the management of allergy, seizures, tracheotomy in the community setting).
• To identify unmet health needs for this client group.
• To monitor performance and evaluate outcomes in order to ensure quality of service.

Person specification

Qualifications and Training

Essential criteria

• Experience of working in the acute sector with children
• Experience of working with children and young people with disability/complex needs.

Desirable criteria

• Continence training
• Teaching / mentorship qualification
• Sexual health qualification
• Health Promotion Certificate

Experience & Abilities

Essential criteria

• Demonstrate good communication skills, both verbally and written
• Work autonomously under pressure, able to prioritise workload with minimal supervision.
• Use evidence and research in practice
• Demonstrate a commitment of promoting the health of children and young people with complex needs
• Experience of working with children with disability/complex needs.
• Demonstrate a sound knowledge of complex needs issues in the community
• Demonstrate a good knowledge of recent development services for children with complex needs (NSF Aiming High, Better care, better lives, NICE, Continuing care framework)
• Clear understanding of policies relating to the safeguarding of Children.
• Good team player

Desirable criteria

• Leadership skills.
• Knowledge of working with RIO electronic record keeping
• Community experience
• Experience/special interest in continence
• Experience of working in a School nursing team
• Experience of working in a health visiting team
• Experience in delivering training

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.

Employer certification / accreditation badges

Applicant requirements

This post is subject to the Rehabilitation of Offenders Act 1974 (Exceptions) Order 1975 (Amendment) (England and Wales) Order 2020 and it will be necessary for a submission for Disclosure to be made to the Disclosure and Barring Service.

Documents to download

• JD (PDF, 308.7KB)
• Working at LGT (PDF, 4.2MB)