Hospital Palliative and End of Life Care Lead

The post holder will provide vision and leadership in the field of palliative and end of life care across the Trust, with the opportunity to shape an evolving service at a time of change and growth. They will work as a key member of the Senior Leadership team in collaboration with nursing, medical and other healthcare professionals to develop and ensure exceptional palliative and end of life care across the Trust.

The Trust is going through substantial transformational change and the post holder will lead, supported by the Lead Nurse for Palliative Care, the transformation of Hospital Palliative Care. The post holder will have clinical and managerial responsibility for Hospital Specialist Palliative Care and End of Life Care services across the University Hospitals Dorset NHSFT and will retain some clinical practice in order to maintain their clinical expertise. They will provide expert professional advice to other professionals, multidisciplinary groups, patients and carers. They will ensure evidence-based practice is maintained, ensure high quality training and education is delivered, and develop policies and guidelines to support the provision of high-quality care.

They will have a significant role in clinical governance processes and the UHD End of Life Steering Group. They will report directly to the Lead Nurse for Specialist Palliative Care and be a core member of the Palliative Care Senior Team.

Provide leadership, management duties and support for the Hospital Specialist Palliative Care Team and End of Life Care Team.
Lead developments in practice consistent with the Palliative and End of Life patient care priorities set out nationally and locally.
Develop new roles and redesign services in line with best practice and evidence-based care.
Play a key role in ensuring the principles of clinical governance are implemented both at a local level and across the Trust for Palliative and End of Life Care.
Measure and monitor the quality of Palliative and End of Life Care being delivered throughout the Trust, including patient safety, patient experience, user engagement and clinical outcomes.
Be responsible for staff supervision and support, including delivery of appraisals and personal development plans feeding into the annual Learning Needs Analysis (LNA).

Our values define who we are as #TeamUHD. They underpin everything we do now and in the future. They define how we treat our patients, visitors, and each other, our valued teammates and colleagues.

UHD are investing in services across the Trust, with many being transformed and developed following merger and the New Hospital Programme.

This means that some services may move site this year or next, either temporarily or long term. Recruiting Managers interviewing for this role will be happy to answer any specific questions that you have about this at interview.

There are on average just over 700 deaths per quarter within University Hospitals Dorset NHS Foundation Trust (UHD) hospitals. Providing palliative and end of life care in the acute hospital setting is not just a specialist role and is the job of everyone working in the Trust. Based on national drivers “One Chance to Get it Right: Improving people’s experience of care in the last few days and hours of life” (Leadership Alliance for the care of dying people, 2014) 1 and “Ambitions for Palliative and End of Life Care: A national framework for local action 2015-2020” 2 , the UHD “End of Life Care Strategy 2021- 2026” 3 aims to improve the care given in the last months, weeks, days and hours of life across all domains, and support the bereaved.

The UHD End of Life Care strategy is underpinned by the core vision of providing outstanding end of life care to all those who come into contact with the University Hospitals Dorset NHS Trust and the knowledge that there is only one chance to get it right.