We are looking for passionate and committed individuals to join us as Children’s Site Practitioners. 

Our busy Children’s Department covers two sites – Queens Hospital in Romford and King George’s Hospital in Ilford. We deliver a comprehensive range of general medical and surgical services to our local population and have two inpatient wards, one with a co-located 4 bedded HDU, a day unit with a POSCU and haematology service, two outpatients departments with a GP ‘hot clinic’, a team of Clinical Nurse Specialists and a Children’s Community Nursing team.

Our 25 cot level 2 NICU is soon to be expanded to 32 cots and has community and outreach teams to support babies on discharge.

We have two ED’s for children, one on each site, and these are among the busiest in the country with over 58,000 children’s attendances in year 2016-2017.

Our Children’s nursing team is expanding, and is led by our new Divisional Nurse for Child Health, a new Trust wide role to ensure children and young people receive high quality care wherever they access services across our organisation. When you come here you’ll always be learning; developing your knowledge and ensuring your skills are kept fully up to date. You will be supported by Practice Development nurses, Advanced Neonatal Nurse Practitioners and Quality managers, together with a friendly multidisciplinary team and a corporate training and development team. We have in house leadership programmes and work with a range of universities to ensure you can progress through academic pathways in order to support your career development. 
We know it takes happy, motivated staff to produce patient satisfaction, so we’re investing in making our hospitals great places to work. It’s about living our values: Passion, Responsibility, Innovation, Drive and Empowerment – the PRIDE at the heart of all we do.

You’ll also be playing your part in preparing the NHS for the future. We’re proud to be one of only five Trusts in the country to secure a place on the ground-breaking Virginia Mason Institute Programme to transform patient care, and we’re also one of eight new, national Vanguard sites spearheading transformational change in urgent and emergency care.

Our Children’s Services has recently been rated “good” by CQC for being responsive to patients, effective, caring and a well-led service. The nursing establishment has undergone redesign of nursing establishments where we have improved our Staff-Patient ratio from 1:5 to 1:4 – to provide better and safer care for our patients.

The new Children’s Site Practitioner (CSP) team will play a major part in the development and expansion of our children’s services. They will, as senior children’s nurses, provide clinical expertise and support, together with leadership to children’s clinical areas (including inpatients, outpatients, NICU and children’s ED) on a shift by shift basis. Out of hours they will work as part of the children’s hospital at night clinical team to ensure a timely and appropriate response to children and young people’s needs, in liaison with the overall hospital at night Trust team. 

The CSP’s will work with the Trust Site Team in ensuring Trust policies and protocols relating to children and young people are adhered to, ensuring high standards of clinical care, decision making, and patient flow through the organisation are maintained, identifying shortfalls in resources and intervening as necessary to find effective solutions.

The CSP team will deliver expert advice and will practise expanded clinical skills within the Children’s department and to support children’s ED, working collaboratively with the Site Team. The post holder will assist the Trust Site Team to ensure the Trust meets government standards and targets in relation to bed management for children and will balance competing demands between process and clinical support. 

If you have a PICU/HDU/trauma background, sound management experience and you are an effective communicator and leader, this could be the career opportunity you have been looking for.

All new staff appointed to posts at the Trust is subject to a probationary period. This will give the new staff member an opportunity to become familiar with the culture and working environment of the Trust.

Applications should be made online, however queries regarding the application process or assistance with completion of the form (for applicants with a disability) can be made to HR Recruitment Department, on 01708435000 Ext. 2177. Further details regarding the post may be obtained by contacting the manager as per contact details as below.

For informal enquiries please contact Lynda Hassell - Divisional Nurse, Child Health on 01708435000 Dect 6254 or via email Lynda.Hassell@bhrhospitals.nhs.uk