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Job summary

Main area
Hospital palliative care
Grade
Band 7
Contract
Permanent
Hours
Full time - 37.5 hours per week (predominantly Monday to Friday, office hours)
Job ref
813-197-0825-LB
Employer
Medway Community Healthcare CIC
Employer type
NHS
Site
Medway Maritime Hospital
Town
Gillingham
Salary
£47,810 - £54,710 per annum
Salary period
Yearly
Closing
15/08/2025 23:59

Employer heading

Medway Community Healthcare CIC logo

Hospital palliative care team lead

Band 7

Do you want to be part of an award winning and dynamic social enterprise that:

  • is renowned for providing high quality care and is ranked ‘Good’ by the CQC;
  • is a for-better-profit organisation, reinvesting any surplus back into our health and care services and our local community;
  • is friendly, ambitious, welcomes innovation and rewards excellence;
  • offers superior benefits; everything you get in the NHS and more;
  • and whose achievements reflect the passion, dedication and commitment demonstrated by our staff across all services?

Our vision is to be a successful, vibrant, community interest company that benefits the communities we serve. So if you want be a part of this, we would love to hear from you.

Job overview

  • Are you an experienced palliative care practitioner with a strong work ethic and an interest in leadership?

If you answered yes, we’ve got the perfect role for you!

We are looking for a dedicated individual with robust clinical expertise, excellent communication skills  and significant experience to lead our Hospital Palliative Care Team, providing a high quality in-reach service to inpatients within the acute trust.

This role involves good partnership working with the End of Life Care Team at the hospital, working together to promote good palliative and end of life care for patients admitted with acute illness.

The successful applicant will provide leadership and support to our existing team within Medway Foundation Trust. The role will focus predominantly on  managing the team but there will also be a requirement to work clinically to maintain skills and demonstrate positive role-modelling.

Working hours will be Monday - Friday 08:30 - 16:30 .

All Team Leads also participate in an on-call rota for the wider Hospice service.

Please ensure that your supporting statement evidences your aptitude and enthusiasm for the role as this will form part of the shortlisting process.

This role is a split clinical / management role, approximately 70:30, but will be dependent on service needs.

Would you like to know more? Please contact us or pop in for a chat! 

Main duties of the job

Clinical responsibilities include assessing physical and psychological presentation and subsequent planning of treatment programmes or providing support, advice and guidance to primary healthcare providers. The post holder will be a non-medical prescriber to allow for 
effective and efficient medicines management in the acute and community teams, and facilitate swift transfers to the Wisdom Hospice IPU. They will also be ensuring that patients and their families are well educated in order to make informed decisions. The caseload is varied and 
includes neurological, respiratory, fragility as well as cancer. The post holder will have the opportunity to work in the community to ensure full understanding of pathways and networks to 
ensure high quality evidence-based outcomes are achieved with the patient and their loved ones at the centre. The post holder will be expected to participate in delivering structured / planned and ad hoc education programmes / teaching to a wide variety of healthcare professionals.

The post holder will have a key leadership and management role within the HPCT in order to ensure that a consistently high standard of patient and family / carers services are delivered across the team / service. 
The post holder will participate in the palliative care managers on call rota.

If the post holder is not a NMP they will be expected to undertake this training as a clinical development, although this is not dependent on their grade.

 

 

 

Working for our organisation

So what else?

  • This is your chance to join a progressive and innovative service in a social enterprise that is patient and staff focused - you’ll even have the opportunity to become an MCH shareholder.
  • We encourage staff to get involved in exploring new ways of working and service development.
  • We’ll provide well established, in-service training, one to one supervision, and appraisals with regular support.
  • You’ll be able to develop your skills in a friendly and supportive team.

Would you like to work flexibly?  In the NHS, we are reminded every day of how important work life balance is. As a flexible working friendly organisation, we want to be sure that you can work in a way that is best for us, for our patients and for you. Speak to us about how we might be able to accommodate a flexible working arrangement.

The small print

  • Informal visits can be arranged on request.
  • We will offer you the choice of two pension schemes; the NHS Pension scheme and the scottish widows group pension scheme.
  • MCH encourages all staff to be double COVID vaccinated to protect themselves, their colleagues, their family and their patients.

Detailed job description and main responsibilities

Role requirement and person specification

Qualifications, training, knowledge and experience

Essential:

  • Degree in nursing/physiotherapy/paramedical sciences
  • Advance Communications 
  • Advance clinical assessment and consultation skills 
  • Non-medical prescribing qualification 
  • Working in a specialist palliative care environment 


Desirable:

  • Previous experience of line management service development and working across various settings 
  • MSc in palliative care  

 

Communication skills

Essential: 

  •  Provide and receive highly complex, sensitive or contentious information
  •  There may be barriers to understanding and acceptance exacerbated by disease progression, or its speed, or prognosis, in a highly emotive atmosphere. Negotiation, education, empathy and reassurance will be needed to reach agreement or understanding.
  •  Information may be received from or given to patients, family or other health and social care professionals in own organisation or externally
  • Advocating for patients / clients wishes as these may not be the same as others

Analytical and judgement skills 

Essential:

  • Ability to analyse complex situations with multiple options and make plans to support staff with this process too.

 

Full JD and person specification can be found in attachments 

 

Person specification

Qualifications

Essential criteria
  • Degree in Nursing/Physiotherapy/Paramedical Sciences
  • Advanced Clinical Assessment Skills training completion
  • Non-Medical Prescribing Course training completion
  • Advanced Communication Skills training completion
Desirable criteria
  • Leadership/Management Qualification
  • Counselling skills qualification
  • MSc in Palliative Care Studies or equivalent

Experience

Essential criteria
  • Significant experience of working within a specialist palliative care setting
  • Previous experience of line management and service development
  • Significant experience of delivering education to a multi-disciplinary audience
Desirable criteria
  • Experience of working within an acute setting, preferably ED/Acute Oncology/Acute Medicine

Aptitude for the role

Essential criteria
  • Robustly completed supporting statement, evidencing understanding and enthusiasm for the role
  • Ability to demonstrate resilience and strong work ethic
  • Excellent written and verbal communication skills
  • Evidence of being able to support and work well as leader of a team

MCH Values

Essential criteria
  • Good understanding of MCH values

Employer certification / accreditation badges

Apprenticeships logoNo smoking policyWorkplace Wellbeing Charter LogoCare quality commission - GoodDisability confident committedStep into healthArmed Forces Covenant

Applicant requirements

You must have appropriate UK professional registration.

This post is subject to the Rehabilitation of Offenders Act 1974 (Exceptions) Order 1975 (Amendment) (England and Wales) Order 2020 and it will be necessary for a submission for Disclosure to be made to the Disclosure and Barring Service.

Documents to download

Apply online now

Further details / informal visits contact

Name
Roz Yates
Job title
Clinical Lead for Palliative Care Services
Email address
[email protected]
Telephone number
07818 062327

If you have problems applying, contact

Address
MCH House
Bailey Drive
Gillingham Business Park
Gillingham
ME8 0PZ
Telephone
07796182085
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