Specialist Dietitian

An exciting opportunity has arisen for an enthusiastic and motivated Dietitian to join our friendly and innovative paediatric team.


This community role with our paediatric Home Enteral Nutrition Team will be ideal for a Dietitian with experience in paediatrics and/or nutritional support, who wants to develop clinical skills working with babies, children and young people living in the community with a feeding tube.


You will work closely with the multidisciplinary team including Dietitians, Speech and Language Therapists, Specialist Nurses and Community Paediatricians. Children are seen in a range of settings, such as children's centres, nurseries, schools or the child's home. Some work can also be caried out remotely through video and telephone clinics.


You will have excellent communication and organisational skills to manage a diverse caseload of children as well as effective team working skills.


There will be opportunities to be involved in service development, research and audit, and training Health Care Professionals, including student Dietitians.


Post is based in the Community at Waldron Health Centre, New Cross, and Kaleidoscope Children's Centre in Catford.
o Specialist Dietitian in the provision and the service development of the paediatric dietetic service provided by the HEN team across Lewisham, Lambeth and Southwark.o To autonomously assess and treat a specialist dietetic caseload of children receiving HEN, liaising with their families, carers, acute and community staff. This could be in the patient's own home, clinics, nursery or schoolo To provide specialist paediatric dietetic advice and training to patients, carers and all other health professionalso To write, update, disseminate and implement policies and procedures related to Paediatric Home Enteral Feeding. These policies would impact all Health Care Professionals involved in Home Enteral Nutritiono To regularly undertake research and audit in specialist area
Our people are our greatest asset. 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:


~ 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


~ Improving the experience of staff with disability


~ Improving the EDI literacy and confidence of trust staff through training and development


~ Specialist Dietitian in the provision and the service development of the paediatric dietetic service provided by the HEN team across Lewisham, Lambeth and Southwark.


~ To autonomously assess and treat a specialist dietetic caseload of children receiving HEN, liaising with their families, carers, acute and community staff. This could be in the patients own home, clinics, nursery or school


~ To provide specialist paediatric dietetic advice and training to patients, carers and all other health professionals


~ To write, update, disseminate and implement policies and procedures related to Paediatric Home Enteral Feeding. These policies would impact all Health Care Professionals involved in Home Enteral Nutrition


~ Key Result Areas & Performance:


To provide expert, specialist, evidence based, dietetic advice and care to paediatric patients and their carers regarding home enteral nutrition. Communicating highly complex and sensitive information on nutrition using negotiation, counselling and behavioural change skills.


This will require particularly close liaison with the Childrens Community Nursing Team and Speech and Language therapists.

~ To develop and maintain close communications with all health care professionals (Consultants, GPs, Acute Dietitians, Childrens Community Nurses, SALTs, School Teachers, School Nurses, Social workers, Portage workers), private sector companies and other agencies as necessary in order to provide co-ordinated patient centred care.


~ To arrange visits/clinics for patients and their families at the various childrens centres, schools and nurseries. Attend, where appropriate, local hospital or community meetings and clinics with other members of the MDT.


To work with families who may have learning disabilities, mental health problems and challenging behaviours
To work with patients who have language barriers to effective communication. This may often require the use of interpreting services via the telephone or with a relevant interpreter at the patients place of care.
To empathise, communicate and reassure families who may be dealing with unpleasant circumstances/diagnosis relating to their child. This may include relaying additional unwelcome information relating to the long term nutritional requirements of a child.
Besides acting as an emotional support for the family the Dietitian will be responsible as the organisational link between all health professionals involved in the acute and community settings ensuring consistency of services.
To be involved with children and their carers placed on the child protection register. The dietitian will be responsible for receiving highly confidential, complex and sensitive information and will act within Lewisham and Greenwich and Guys and St Thomas Paediatric Community Services child protection policies.
To document all activities concerning patient care in the paediatric dietetic patient record notes including all confidential correspondence with health care professionals and enteral feeding delivery company in accordance with trust policies.

~ To produce timely and informative reports for Consultants, Paediatrician, GPs and other health professional relevant to a specific family.


~ To negotiate with carers, clients and other members of the multi-disciplinary team around individual case management and to provide support to other team members and health care professionals in the specialist area of home enteral tube feeding.


To make all clinical decisions and judgments autonomously guided by broad professional and organisational policies.
To analyse dietary intake and calculate nutritional requirements using clinical judgement and experience as well as computer software as required when completing a treatment plan for a specific patient.


To take anthropometric measurements and interpret as part of nutrition assessment of patients ongoing monitoring.

Planning and Organisational Skills


To manage and act as an independent holder of the paediatric caseload ensuring high quality dietetic care is delivered. To liaise with health care professionals regarding hospital discharges or new referrals and offer joint visits as required enabling them to formulate care plans in relation to enteral feeding which are based on specialist assessment and recommendations.

~ To devise and implement specialist evidence/research based guidelines and protocols that can be used Trust(s) wide for the dietetic care management in relation to paediatric enteral nutrition.


~ To demonstrate highly skilled clinical expertise within own team and LSL Primary Care Networks and act as a resource in the specialism of paediatric enteral nutrition, advising colleagues on the management within the specialist area.


To supervise dietitians and dietetic assistants who would assist in the care and administration of Paediatric HEN patients.

To provide support and training to the HEN team administration staff.
To be involved in the development of, write and update, disseminate and implement policies and procedures related to all aspects regarding Paediatric Home Enteral Feeding across Lewisham, Southwark and Lambeth. Special Needs schools, Childrens Community Nurses, Special needs nurses, and Speech and Language Therapists

~ To be aware of trust policies and procedure and participate in their creation and development. To assist in the co-ordination of HEN team service objectives and projects contributing to the team service plan.


~ To ensure all equipment defects, accidents, complaints and clinical incidents are reported to the team leader and necessary action is taken by those concerned.


Qualifications & Training
o4 year degree in dietetics or equivalent
oAdvanced BDA course in paediatrics (or equivalent)
oSpecialist paediatric training/experience working to or at masters level
oRegistration with Health Professional Council
oEvidence of ongoing Professional development

oNutritional Support Training
oSignificant experience of paediatric dietetics
oEvidence of training student dietitians
oWorking in the community setting
oComputer Literacy, able to use Word, Excel
oFull driving licence


University Hospital Lewisham


Waldron Health Centre/Kaleidoscope, Amersham Vale, SE14 6LD