Nurse Consultant – Specialist Paediatric Palliative Care

About the role

At Southern Hospice Group and Chestnut Tree House, we believe every child with a life-limiting condition deserves outstanding, compassionate care, wherever they are.

Following the successful contract award for 24/7 Consultant led children’s palliative and end of life care services for Sussex, Southern Hospice Group is recruiting for an exceptional Nurse Consultant in Specialist Paediatric Palliative Care to lead the mobilisation and delivery of COAST (Children’s Outreach & Symptom Team).

Working with our Director of Nursing and Care, this is a rare opportunity to shape and deliver a fully integrated 24/7 paediatric palliative care service across Sussex, working across home, hospice, community and hospital settings to improve continuity of care, reduce avoidable hospital admissions, and ensure families can access expert support whenever they need it.

As the senior nursing expert for paediatric palliative care within COAST, you will combine advanced clinical practice, strategic leadership, education, research and service development to influence care across the wider system.

You will play a pivotal role in mobilising COAST, following the successful proof-of-concept service that has run for the past two years, into a sustainable, fully operational 24/7 model in line with NICE guidance.

Approximately 60% of your role will remain clinically focused, delivering expert care for children and young people with highly complex needs, including symptom management and end-of-life care. The remaining 40% will focus on organisational leadership, workforce development, governance, partnership working and innovation.

You will also directly lead and support the newly established multidisciplinary COAST team, including Clinical Nurse Specialists, pharmacy and administrative colleagues.

You'll be

• Providing advanced specialist paediatric palliative and end-of-life care across hospice, home, hospital and community settings
• Leading complex symptom management, clinical decision-making and non-medical prescribing
• Supporting children and families through sensitive conversations, advance care planning and ReSPECT discussions
• Driving the phased mobilisation of a 24/7 specialist paediatric palliative care service
• Influencing regional strategy and integrated care pathways across Sussex
• Developing advanced nursing practice and contributing to workforce education and capability building
• Leading quality improvement, audit, governance and research initiatives
• Representing SHG at local, regional and national forums

About us

Southern Hospice Group is the largest group of hospices in Sussex and one of the largest in the UK. We are committed to providing exceptional and compassionate care to adults, children and their families across Sussex. Bringing our teams and resources together as one organisation means we can focus on new and exciting visions and plans for our people and patients and provide even greater opportunities for our workforce.

St Barnabas House provides specialist palliative care to adults in the Worthing, Adur, Arun and Henfield areas through a range of services, including in-patient care and community living well services.

Chestnut Tree House is the children’s hospice for East and West Sussex and South East Hampshire, providing specialist palliative care for children and young people with life-limiting conditions.

Martlets provides essential care to people affected by terminal illness in Brighton and Hove and surrounding areas. Our expert teams provide the very best care and support, helping patients and their loved ones to live life to the full during the precious time they have together.

Benefits

• Company pension scheme or NHS pension scheme for eligible employees
• Up to 35 days’ annual leave inclusive of bank holidays
• On-site education support and study leave opportunities
• Option to access Medicash and cover your everyday cost of healthcare for less
• Free parking, subsidised meals and various social activities
• Corporate rate gym membership, discounts with local complementary therapies and Blue Light Card
• Employee Assistance Programme
• Death in Service

We warmly welcome applications from all sections of our community. We also invite applications from suitably experienced people for all industry sectors who can demonstrate the skills, ability and enthusiasm to work with a people-centric organisation like ours.

Artificial intelligence (AI)

Your application and interview should give us an accurate and authentic picture of your skills and experiences. Artificial intelligence can be a useful tool to support your application, however, all examples and statements provided must be truthful, factually accurate and taken directly from your own experience. Where plagiarism has been identified (presenting the ideas and experiences of others, or generated by artificial intelligence, as your own) applications may be withdrawn and internal candidates may be subject to disciplinary action.

Before you submit an application, we will ask you to confirm the information you provide is true and accurate. Where plagiarism has been identified (presenting the ideas and experiences of others, or generated by artificial intelligence, as your own) applications may be withdrawn and internal candidates may be subject to disciplinary action.

Please note that we reserve the right to close this vacancy before the published closing date where applicant volume is high.

This post is subject to the Rehabilitation of Offenders Act (Exceptions Order) 1975 and as such it will be necessary for an Enhanced submission for Disclosure to be made to the Disclosure and Barring Service to check for any previous criminal convictions.