Dietetic Assistant Care Coordinator

Job Title: Dietetic Assistant Care Coordinator

Salary: £30,279 per annum

per annum

Hours: 37.5 hours per week

Responsible to: Dietitian Lead

Key Relationships: General Practice, One Westminster, Central and North West London NHS Foundation Trust (CNWL), Central London Community Healthcare NHS Trust (CLCH).

BACKGROUND

Healthcare Central London is the GP Federation covering the Central London CCG area. The organisation supports 33 General Practices and 4 Primary Care Networks (PCNs). We operate a number of NHS contracts including a Care Navigation Service, a Clinical Pharmacy Service, a Community Dermatology Service, and Partnership in Practice (PiP) - an out-of-hospitals provision which is sub-contracted to its 33 General Practice members.

Our vision is to be recognised as a leading GP provider network, run by clinicians for the benefit of our local population. We will achieve this by working with patients and partners to ensure that general practice remains sustainable and independent.

Our approach is to deliver exceptional assistance to our 34 General Practice members and to operate our NHS contracts in a manner that supports our Practices and their patients by providing services economically, locally, promptly, and in a familiar environment.

Now in our 13th year we look forward to our continued growth and to contributing a voice for General Practice in the planned Integrated Care System (ICS).

JOB ROLE

Care Coordinators play an important role within a PCN to proactively work with people, including the frail/elderly and those with long-term conditions, to provide coordination and navigation of care and support across health and care services.

The Dietitian Team are looking for a Dietitian Assistant Care Coordinator to support the work of the dynamic work across the Dietitian Service. This includes triage, proactive case finding of patients with cardiometabolic risk factors, making referrals to other specialist services, liaising with MDT and supporting with group education and group consultations. We provide a high-quality service to all our patients and practices and believe in exceptional patient care.

There will be innovative and exciting services launching which will change the way we provide services to our patients. This includes on hand training for practices, webinars and educational talks to GPs, healthcare professionals and also patient webinars. This role will play a central role on the delivery of such services.

KEY TASKS AND RESPONSIBILITIES

CLINICAL

1. To work without direct supervision but under the direction of the qualified staff in the performance of specific tasks for an individual or group of non-complex patients as part of their treatment programmes. Duties may include:

· Implementation of treatment plans

· Assessing nutritional intake and taking diet histories

· Independently evaluating and progressing patients dietetic care plan

· Deliver nutrition support / basic dietary advice

· Advising and educating patients where necessary on menu options and foods suitable for their dietary needs

· To be competent in the safe use of anthropometric equipment under the supervision of a Dietitian.

· Identifying food and drink preferences as necessary regarding snacks and supplements

· Carrying own caseload of non-complex patients including decisions on discharge

· Providing education to patients, relatives and ward staff

· Direct assistance to qualified staff with more complex patients

· Onward referral. Signpost to external agencies and organisations

· To send relevant nutrition/care information to patients as directed by the supervising Dietitian/Triage Team

2. To write progress notes in a concise, accurate and timely manner in line with departmental standards. These notes do not require qualified staff to countersignature

3. To be aware at all times of the needs of patients during illness or disability and to promote and encourage suitable nutrition strategies

4. To undertake any non-clinical / clerical duties as necessary. This may include dealing with telephone calls, arranging training, recruiting patients for group consultations, completing onwards referrals.

5. To be actively involved in the communication of information regarding patients conditions and any other useful information to the dietitians and other members of the multidisciplinary team

6. To communicate effectively with patients and carers. Communication skills of persuasion, motivations and explanation will be required. Barriers to communication may include loss of hearing, altered perception, pain and language disorders.

7. To be involved in the delivery, collection, cleaning and maintenance of dietetic equipment.

8. Working alongside practice staff to facilitate appropriate dietary measures are in place.

9. Support proactive case finding of patients through running reports on SystmOne to support the Dietitian Team with identifying patients who need Oral Nutritional Supplement reviews, or recruit for group consultations

Organisational:

· To provide referral management and appointment booking

· To develop and maintain a knowledge of service pathways and criteria.

· To enable the impact of the service to be assessed and to inform the improvement of other local services by keeping electronic records of all referrals and interventions.

· To contact patients by SMS, telephone, email or letter to update them on their appointments

· Reviewing and processing referrals received from GP Practices

· Actively call patients with a view to assisting them through the process and making their onward appointments into Dietetics, either within the Primary Care team, or the most relevant Dietetic department

· Booking of appointments for appropriate referrals

· Dealing appropriately with any booking or change request calls (or other correspondence), i.e. alteration of appointment booking or cancellation, that this is documented clearly on the patient record

· Maintain records of all activities carried out, i.e. outbound calls, calls received, archiving any received correspondence.

· Provide clinical and non-clinical information in appropriate chronological templates to other services. Regarding both onward referrals to secondary care services to allow patients to make an informed choice regarding their service provider.

· Actively answer telephone calls and deal with queries in a sensitive and timely way liaising with clinical or managerial staff as is appropriate.

· Ensure any messages/voicemails are dealt with appropriately and in a timely way.

· Monitor and action tasks within SystmOne

· Provide support with crosschecks and service reports; distribute any incoming mail or faxes as appropriate.

· To maintain and develop effective communication across the team

· Other administrative tasks as required

· Provide administrative support to Healthcare Central London.

· Take part in Healthcare Central London events and activities where applicable, and in consultation with their line manager.

PERSON SPECIFICATION

Skills and Knowledge

· To hold RQF/Diploma level 4/5 qualification(s) in a related discipline such as healthcare apprenticeship or to have passed Competencies for the Dietetics Assistant role

· Have or be willing to work towards the Care Certificate

· GCSE English and Maths grade 4/C minimum or equivalent qualification

· Effective verbal, written and numeracy communication skills

· Able to establish good relationships with patients, carers, colleagues and health care professions

· To recognise and work within the limits of practice, demonstrating an awareness of own limitations and when and whom to seek help from

· Will work towards being able to prioritise and manage own workload

· Computer literate, able to use email, the internet and web searches as standard applications and databases

· Excellent communication skills, both verbal and written

· Numerate and literate, able to supply reports as required.

· Has, or can show capacity to develop, a good knowledge of primary care and local services

· Knowledge of personalisation and public health agendas, including the Digital First Primary Care programme

· Multi-tasking utilising IT (SystmOne), email, telephone systems & having excellent attention to detail

Experience

· At least 1 years’ experience of working in a customer service orientated environment

· Organisation and delivery of group education (with support by Dietetic Team) for AHP’s and Patients

· Involvement in developing and delivering health promotion initiatives such as talks, promotional events, and patient related activity under support of supervising Dietitian

· Experience of working in Primary Care

· Excellent SystmOne skills

Personal Attributes:

· A passion for health and wellbeing, particularly for nutrition and lifestyle

· This requires someone with a mature outlook, with a willingness to learn and work as part of team as well autonomously

· Participate in any training programme implemented by the organisation as part of this employment

· Solution focused and able to work to service specifications and targets.

· Ability to deal with challenging and vulnerable people and having the emotional resilience to manage difficult and upsetting conversations where necessary.

· Tactful and diplomatic, able to build rapport with people from a wide range of backgrounds.

· Works in a systemised, process driven way, able to handle and manage a high level of volume of tasks and information

· Good time management and organisational skills, ability to show initiative

Dietitian Assistant Care Coordinators will be contactable by phone and email during the core opening hours of the Dietitian Service which is 8.30am to 5pm and you will eventually be required to work your contracted hours within these times. Where practices are open at weekends, there may also be a requirement to work some of your contracted hours at your contracted rate of pay at the weekend.

Criteria

Education / Training / Qualifications

Essential

A RQF level 4/5 qualification(s) in a related discipline* such as a healthcare apprenticeship

Able to demonstrate competence in maths and English

Care certificate or willing to work toward

Completion of nutrition / dietetic related foundation degree or equivalent qualification / training programme or equivalent level of experience either working within healthcare or a customer service based role.

Knowledge and Experience

Essential

Strategic understanding and experience of working in the NHS with extensive knowledge and understanding of the roles of the NHS organisation and of the primary care sector.

Comprehensive experience working in area relevant to dietetics

Experience as working as part of a team

Experience of working with relevant patient group

Experience of working in a clinical environment

In depth understanding of nutrition and its importance

Demonstrates interest in nutrition

Desirable

Previous similar role in a healthcare or public sector environment.

SystmOne experience.

Experience of preparing / presenting teaching sessions

Secretarial / administrative skills / experience

Awareness of local needs e.g. ethnic minority and low income groups

Skills / Abilities

Essential

Ability to communicate sensitive information effectively with people by telephone, email and face to face.

Advanced knowledge of Microsoft software applications (Outlook, Word, Excel etc.)

Exceptional attention to detail.

Excellent time management skills.

Able to respond to changing demands and reprioritise when necessary.

Good problem-solving skills.

Able to work without supervision to agreed deadlines.

Able to work on own initiative, organising and prioritising own workloads often to tight deadlines.

Willingness to adapt to change, and to develop services and systems to meet changing demands.

Proven ability to respond to the unexpected and ability to make judgements around when to make decisions independently or when it may be appropriate to escalate.

Able to undertake a diverse range of tasks at the same time.

Desirable

Good written and verbal communication skills – able to deal with complex, sensitive issues on a one to one basis, in group settings and via interpreters

Organisational skills

Time management

Maintain confidentiality

Flexible approach

Foundation level knowledge of Nutritional assessment skills

Interpersonal Skills

Essential

Well-developed interpersonal and oral/written communication skills.

Able to maintain effective working relationships at all levels and with staff in other offices.

Able to deal with challenging conversations in a tactful yet assertive manner.

Professional, calm and efficient manner.

Works well with others, is positive and helpful, listens, involves, respects and learns from the contribution of others.

Empathy for individuals who have experienced mental health problems and ability to cope with behaviour which may be challenging at times.

Enthusiasm to work in clinical setting

Enthusiasm to work with relevant patient group

Able to take responsibility under guidance

Able to achieve deadlines

Demonstrates ability to work as a team

Able to use initiative

Desirable

Ability to delegate to other staff

Able to prioritise and manage busy work loads

Demonstrates proactive with CPD

Flexible in working across sites