**Job summary**:
Are you passionate about enhancing nutritional care in hospital? An exciting opportunity has arisen to recruit an enthusiastic, self-motivated Assistant Practitioner to support across our friendly speech and language therapy (SLT) and dietetic teams. In this role you can make a difference to patient wellbeing by supporting the delivery of good nutritional care.

You will work under the supervision of SLTs and Dietitians to promote and provide excellent nutrition and hydration advice on both ward and admission avoidance settings.

You will provide one to one follow up consultations with patients and/ or carers at ward level or by telephone, deliver training to ward staff, actively promote good practice in nutrition and hydration care and support the dietetic and SLT team in planning and managing effective discharge of patients.

This will involve reviewing patients triaged by the SLT and dietitian for assessment and treatment, working unsupervised, reporting back regarding patient progress and maintaining appropriate records. You will therefore need to work on your own initiative and demonstrate reliability.

The dietetic and SLT department is committed to your continued professional and career development. We offer excellent training and development opportunities and the support of a large team of senior and specialist dietitians and SLTs.

**Main duties, tasks & skills required**:
A passion and interest in enhancing nutritional care is essential. You will need to demonstrate excellent communication and interpersonal skills as well as the ability to work flexibly and reliably as part of a team. Some of the key skills you would require include manage a busy caseload and demonstrate excellent team working, organisation, time management and administrative skills.

You may have completed a nutrition related foundation degree or be able to demonstrate equivalent experience.

Some clinics, groups or training sessions may be delivered in the evenings and the Trust is committed to providing a 7 day therapy service with participation in bank holiday cover.

The posts will be based at Birmingham Heartlands Hospital, Good Hope and Solihull Hospital and you may be required to work across hospital sites to support the dietetic and SLT services.

The Trust is a multi-site organisation, you may be required to work at any of the Trust sites and you may need to change your normal place of work, either temporarily or on a permanent basis, as a result of development or reorganisation of Trust services.

If you would like to discuss this post, please contact Adelle Williams, Team Leader and Dietitian on Tel. No 0121 424 2673.

The Trust is an equal opportunities employer and enforces a no smoking policy.

**About us**:
We are recognised as one of the leading NHS Foundation Trusts in the UK. Our vision is to Build Healthier Lives, and we recognise that we need incredible staff to do this.

Our commitment to our staff is to create the best place for them to work, and we are dedicated to:
Investing in the health and wellbeing of our staff, including a commitment of offering flexible working where we can;
Offer our staff a wide variety of training and development opportunities, to support their personal and career development objectives.

UHB is committed to ensuring that our staff are treated fairly and feel that they belong, by creating a kind and inclusive environment. This is about equity of opportunity; removing all barriers, including discrimination and ensuring each individual member of staff reach their true potential, achieve their ambitions and thrive in their work. This is more than words. We are taking action. Our commitment to an inclusive culture is embedded at all levels of the organisation where every voice is heard, driven by our diverse and active staff networks, and at Board level by the Fairness Taskforce led by our CEO. We nurture a culture which empowers staff to challenge discriminatory behaviours and to enable people to bring their 'whole self' to a kinder, more connected and bold place to work.

**Job description**:
*Please Note : For a detailed job description for this vacancy, please see attached Job Description*

**Person specification**:
**Qualifications**:
**Essential**:

- Educated to GCSE level or equivalent
- Able to demonstrate competence in maths and English
- NVQ Level 3/BTEC or equivalent
- Care certificate or willing to work towards
- Dysphagia competencies or willing to work towards

**Experience**:
**Essential**:

- Comprehensive experience working in an area relevant to Dietetics /Speech and Language therapy
- Experience of 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
- Demonstrates an interest in communication and swallowing impairments and rehabilitation

**Disclosure and Barring Service Check**: