Clinical Lead (Neonatal and Infant Dysphagia) inGloucester inGloucester PUBLISHED TUE 12 NOV 2024

We would like to welcome applications from highly experienced, motivated, enthusiastic individuals with excellent organisational and interpersonal skills to join our team in a clinical lead role. This role will allow the successful candidate to provide highly specialist assessment and babies (including neonates) experiencing physical eating and drinking difficulties. The successful candidate will be taking responsibility for developing this area of the service and supporting clinicians working within the NNU and community feeding.

Gloucestershire has a large team of Speech and Language Therapist and there will be opportunities for joint working across the team and with other services in the integrated directorate. We hold regular whole team meetings which include CPD sessions in a range of clinical areas. On top of this, therapists meet within smaller working parties when appropriate. Though there will be some lone working, there are shared bases where therapists can meet and work together.

• To provide a highly specialist and compassionate Speech and Language Therapy Service for children and babies experiencing physical feeding difficulties.
• To provide support and supervision for less experienced Speech and Language Therapists, assistants and students.
• To provide training to other therapists as well as other professionals
• To stay aware of changing evidence base and NICE guidelines as appropriate to the clinical field
• To carry out delegated tasks in policy development

The successful candidate will act as the clinical lead therapist for paediatric dysphagia across Gloucestershire. This will involve holding a specialist caseload as well as supporting the team to deliver evidence-based and high quality support to our service users.

The successful candidate will have experience of working independently and leading on service improvement projects.

The qualification, training & experience requirements for the role are underlined in the Job Description/Person Specification.

About us

• To be an autonomous practitioner responsible for the planning, delivery and development of a high quality, evidence-based speech and language service to infants and children who present with complex feeding and or communication disorders during their inpatient admission.
• To provide expert advice and convey complex information to a wide range of personnel, including the family and a range of multi-disciplinary teams (e.g. Respiratory, ENT, Cardiac), and other disciplines within the Trust e.g. Dietetics, Clinical Nurse Specialists) and other community staff, with regard to reducing risk and ensure a well-coordinated care plan.
• To write reports reflecting advanced clinical knowledge. To provide timely reports to NHS and LEA staff and parents to ensure that the childs needs are appropriately identified, contributingevidence to Education and Health Care Plans following the SEND integrated pathway.
• To provide appropriate specialist intervention using evidence-based practice and evaluate outcome measures.
• To use a high level of sensory skills to carry out core clinical work.
• To manage the emotional consequences of working with distressing family conditions and maintain sensitivity and empathy when frequently imparting potentially distressing information regarding the nature and implications of the difficulties. e.g. when involved with a child with a life-limiting illness and involvement in child protection cases.
• To provide clinical supervision, training and appraisals to SLT colleagues and take the clinical lead for the monitoring and development of the dysphagia pathway.