Main Duties and Responsibilities

Patient Care

• To ensure that all initial and review health assessments are completed within timescale and are of high quality and a comprehensive health care plan is completed and shared with GPs, carers and the local authority.

• Ensure timely escalation of delays in commencing assessments.
• Support and advise colleagues in the clinical assessment and care of Children in Care and young people
• Ensure all Children in Care are able to access universal services as well as targeted and specialist health services where necessary.
• To ensure that mechanisms are in place to effectively enable the consultation, participation and involvement of children/young people in care and service users in the planning and delivery of services
• Attend Corporate Parenting Board and provide relevant updates.

Clinical

• To maintain a clinical caseload and assess health needs within a child centred holistic framework.
• Undertake health assessments for Children in Care and provide follow up within agreed pathways as required.
• To communicate with other boroughs as required ensuring effective assessment and implementation of health care plans for those children and young people placed out of borough.
• To use RiO and Azeus in the case management and recording of Children in Care and to maintain an overview of the caseload.
• To monitor trends, quality and appropriateness of referrals and identify gaps, duplications, and blockages to systems and take appropriate action.
• Be able to apply lessons learnt from audit, case management reviews and serious case reviews to improve practice.
• Be an active member of the Senior Nurses Leadership Team
• Provide robust safeguarding framework and support as part of the SCYPS safeguarding working group
• Represent SCYPS when appropriate as Named Nurse for Children in Care (CiC)
• Work closely with Named Doctors for Safeguarding and CiC and nurse leads for safeguarding

Administration

• [SS1] To complete written health assessment reports within expected timescales.
• To complete statistical and other returns as requested.
• To complete  and comment on performance and KPI reports
• Be able to participate in and chair multi-disciplinary meetings as required
• To organise content of and chair team meetings
• To organise and participate in the delivery of training
• To update the annual report yearly and in a timely manner
• To participate in the development of effective pathways and SOPs
• To work as an integrated team with admin team to achieve service priorities and outcomes

Performance and Quality

• To provide statistical data and reports as required in a timely matter.
• To lead on risk management including maintaining the risk register.
• To investigate incidents and complaints providing reports and action plans following these.
• To lead on the development and implementation of local policies and procedures in relation to the health of Children in Care.
• To identify and lead on relevant audits of effectiveness and quality of service provision for Children in Care on an organisation level, including multi – agency audits and audits against national guidelines.
• To present the annual report at the corporate parenting board
• To attend the Trust safeguarding committee to represent Children in Care
• To ensure that all policies and SOPs are up to date
• To encourage Quality Improvement work within the team and wider Trust
• To be instrumental in improving and developing reporting and IT systems relevant to the service
• To provide narrative, including plan to bring back to target, for missed KPIs and other performance data
• Work collaboratively with ICB Designate Nurse

Financial and Physical Resources

• To be an authorised signatory for local budget
• To be responsible for ensuring costs remain within budget allocation both pay and non-pay.
• To be responsible for the ordering of goods and clinical equipments required by the service.
• To participate in financial viability planning and implementation

Knowledge and Skills

Knowledge, Training and Experience

• To maintain registration and revalidation with the NMC at all times and to work within the NMC Code of Professional Conduct.
• Able to interpret regional, national and local policy documents/reports and their implications for looked after children’s health and service provision
• Meet the organisation’s requirements for mandatory training attendance to ensure best clinical practice.
• Attend relevant local, regional, and national continuing professional development activities.
• Maintain competence in accordance to Intercollegiate Document (2020) [SS2] Looked after children: Knowledge, skills and competences of healthcare staff.
• Able to work with multiagency colleagues to support young people leaving care, providing support to access specialist advice on contraception and sexual health, promoting physical and mental health, enabling access to GP services and facilitating transfer of care leavers with complex needs, including those with disabilities seamlessly to adult services.
• Understand relevant child-care legislation, information sharing, information governance, confidentiality and consent in relation to Children in Care
• Understand the needs and legal position of young people, particularly those aged 16 years and over and the transition between children’s and adult legal frameworks including respective service provision
• Understand how the changes to the special educational needs and disability assessment and planning frameworks affect Children in Care.
• Be able to identify unmet health needs/gaps in service provision and promote innovative service solutions.
• Able to review, summarise and interpret information from a range of sources and write a chronology/summary.
• Able to analyse and evaluate information and evidence to inform inter-agency decision making across the organisation.

Supervision

• To receive clinical and managerial supervision on a regular basis.
• To receive safeguarding supervision on a regular basis and communicate with named and designated professionals as appropriate.
• To provide monthly clinical and management  supervision to the specialist nurses
• To provide quarterly safeguarding supervision to the specialist nurses
• To provide tripartite monthly management supervision to the lead administrator, alongside the Head of Administraion.
• To receive bi-monthly supervision from the Designated LAC Nurse in the ICB

Communication and Relationships

• Able to communicate effectively with children and young people including those with complex needs e.g. language difficulties, learning and behavioural difficulties and where English is not their first language use appropriate resources including interpreters to do so.
• Able to adapt and be sensitive and flexible to meet the particular needs of the child and in particular adolescents.
• To communicate and receive highly complex, highly sensitive information, where a high level of interpersonal skills are required.
• Able to confidently manage, provide or ensure supervision is provided from a health perspective for Children in Care where safeguarding issues arise within the care system
• To provide advice and information to Service Managers and Commissioners on questions of planning, strategy and the audit of quality standards in relation to health services for Children in Care.
• To ensure expert health advice about Children in Care is available to East London NHS Foundation Trust, London Borough of Newham, GPs, residential children’s homes and foster carers.
• To attend multi-agency meetings as required.

QUALITY IMPROVEMENT COMPETENCIES:

General

• Promotes a team culture where continuous improvement and learning are the norm.
• Actively listens to the views of service users / carers, and involves service users / carers in quality improvement work. 
• Actively seeks opportunities to improve quality of service delivery by suggesting ideas, testing changes and contributing to ongoing quality improvement work within the team.
• Undertakes the appropriate level of training and development in the quality improvement method and tools.

Management and/or leadership

• Leads a team in a way that supports the development of a culture of continuous improvement and learning.
• Provide managerial supervision, including appraisal and support to the Children in Care specialist nurses, including recruitment and selection, performance management, sickness / absence management and annual leave recording and monitoring.
• Facilitates regular time and space for team reflection
• Promotes awareness and understanding of quality improvement, and shares learning and successes from quality improvement work.
• Utilises the quality improvement approach to think systemically about complex problems, develop potential change ideas and test these in practice using the Trust’s QI framework.
• Maintain close working relationships with the ICB Designated Nurse and commissioners in order to ensure that extra contractual funding for Children in Care are highlighted and met.
• Ensures clinical or restorative supervision is delivered and is adequate to meet the needs of team members.