Job summary
- Main area
- Catering Dietitian
- Grade
- Band 7
- Contract
- Permanent
- Hours
- Full time - 37.5 hours per week (Mon to Fri)
- Job ref
- 350-TWS7462239-A
- Employer
- Mersey Care NHS Foundation Trust
- Employer type
- NHS
- Site
- Hollins Park Hospital
- Town
- Warrington
- Salary
- £47,810 - £54,710 per annum
- Salary period
- Yearly
- Closing
- 15/10/2025 23:59
Employer heading
Lead Catering Dietitcian
Band 7
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Mersey Care NHS Foundation Trust celebrates diversity and promotes equal opportunities; we are committed to challenging and eliminating racism and other forms of discrimination and advancing and promoting equality of opportunity in the provision of services and creating an inclusive environment for all employees. We believe that everyone has the right to be treated with dignity and respect.
We take positive action to support disadvantaged groups and also particularly encourage applications from ethnically diverse, disabled and LGBTQIA+ people that are under-represented in our workforce. Furthermore we welcome applications from reservists and ex-armed forces personnel as we recognise the benefits of the values, skills, training and experience that they bring to their work with us. We encourage all applicants to share their equality information with us.
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Job overview
To work in collaboration with the Catering and Dietetic Teams as the Trust Lead Catering Dietitian.
To work with front line catering teams, catering managers, Dietitians, Speech and Language Therapists, Pharmacists, Nursing teams and other stakeholders to ensure the Trust delivers a wide range of standard hospital menus, therapeutic, religious, and cultural diets.
To act as a source of expertise in the analysis, development, and review of hospital menus.
Ensure all hospital menus are nutritionally adequate and reflect best practice guidelines including hospital food standards, allergen information and International Dysphagia Diet Standardisation Initiative (IDDSI) recommendations.
Main duties of the job
Responsible for supporting highly specialist nutrition and dietetic treatment or education and in the specialist areas of dietetics. This includes delivery and audit of training such as Malnutrition Universal Screening Tool (MUST).
Attendance at and facilitation of patient/service user and carer forums.
Advises all relevant catering and professional staff of nutrition care required, liaises with Catering Department to ensure patients/service users receive the most appropriate menus to meet their nutritional requirements.
Provides advice to Dietitians from other hospitals around the country on specialised patient/service user care when requested.
Assists members of the MDT and other colleagues in the development and promotion of the specialist service.
Leads on health promotion in relation to Nutrition and Hydration within the Trust, supporting health awareness events such as Nutrition and Hydration week, Malnutrition week and Diabetes awareness week.
Responsible for supervision when Student Dietitians are supporting the role of the Catering Dietitian.
Works independently, being responsible for autonomous assessment, clinical decision making, treatment selection and evaluation, within the Health and Care Professions Council Code of Conduct, the British Dietetic Association Professional Standards of Practice and the Trusts policies and procedures.
Working for our organisation
Mersey Care is one of the largest trusts providing physical health and mental health services in the North West, serving more than 1.4 million people across our region and are also commissioned for services that cover the North West, North Wales and the Midlands.
We offer specialist inpatient and community services that support physical and mental health and specialist inpatient mental health, learning disability, addiction and brain injury services. Mersey Care is one of only three trusts in the UK that offer high secure mental health facilities.
At the heart of all we do is our commitment to ‘perfect care’ – care that is safe, effective, positively experienced, timely, equitable and efficient. We support our staff to do the best job they can and work alongside service users, their families, and carers to design and develop future services together. We’re currently delivering a programme of organisational and service transformation to significantly improve the quality of the services we provide and safely reduce cost as we do so.
Flexible working requests will be considered for all roles.
Detailed job description and main responsibilities
work in collaboration with the Catering and Dietetic Teams as the Trust Lead Catering Dietitian.
To work with front line catering teams, catering managers, Dietitians, Speech and Language Therapists, Pharmacists, Nursing teams and other stakeholders to ensure the Trust delivers a wide range of standard hospital menus, therapeutic, religious, and cultural diets.
To act as a source of expertise in the analysis, development, and review of hospital menus.
Ensure all hospital menus are nutritionally adequate and reflect best practice guidelines including hospital food standards, allergen information and International Dysphagia Diet Standardisation Initiative (IDDSI) recommendations.
To work jointly with patients/service users, catering, Dietetics and Speech and Language Therapy to initiate, plan and deliver Trust education and training in nutrition.
To represent dietetics and catering at the Trust Nutrition and Hydration Steering Group, Patient Led Assessments of the Care Environment (PLACE) audits and catering meetings.
Provide highly specialist Dietetic assessment, treatment, monitoring and management in one or more speciality areas of Dietetics when required.
Act as a source of expertise in Dietetics practice locally, regionally and nationally.
Be involved in the training and supervision of Dietetic Students and Dietetic Assistants as per British Dietetic Association (BDA) standards.
Contribute to designing, planning, and implementing research and audit and contributes to publishing results, working in interdisciplinary teams or with other health professionals.
Challenge professional and organisational boundaries to ensure that the role is focused on meeting the needs of the patients/service users.
Contribute to the development of policy and services to reflect the needs of the patients/service users and services.
To lead on the implementation of national and local policies and guidance such as the Hospital Food standards, the Nutrition and Hydration Strategy and BDA guidance.
To have experience in working within physical health, mental health and learning disabilities.
Person specification
Qualifications
Essential criteria
- • Health and Care Professions Council Registered Dietitian
- • Degree in Dietetics or Science/Nutrition Degree plus Post-graduate Diploma in Dietetics
- • Master’s degree in relevant area of practice or equivalent level of specialist dietetic experience and training
- • Clinical Supervisory Skills Course and/or Teaching Certificate
Desirable criteria
- • Basic Allergen Certificate
- • Level 3 Food Hygiene Certificate
- • Clinical Supervisory Skills Course and/or Teaching Certificate
- • Full member of British Dietetic Association
Knowledge & Experience
Essential criteria
- Post registration experience in general clinical Dietetics.
- Post registration experience in working with a catering team.
- Evidence of continuous professional development.
- Evidence of developing practice in a specialist area.
- Evidence of participation in and contribution to the publication of research and audit in one or more of the named speciality areas.
- Experience of training Dietetic staff, students, and other healthcare staff
- Post graduate experience in the use of dietary analysis packages such as diet plan or Nutritics.
Values
Essential criteria
- Continuous Improvement
- Accountability
- Respectfulness
- Enthusiasm
- Support
- High professional standards
- Responsive to service users
- Engaging leadership style
- Strong customer service belief
- Transparency and honesty
- Discreet
- Change oriented
Skills
Essential criteria
- Standard IT keyboard skills.
- Good interpersonal skills.
- Ability to interpret current health service national and local policy and guidelines, including national and local public health agenda.
- Ability to interpret current health service national and local policy and guidelines, including national and local public health agenda.
- Analytic and report writing skills.
- Highly developed communication and clinical skills.
- Ability to facilitate / lead discussions in professional/multi agency meetings.
- Evidence of professional development.
- Presentation skills with the ability to present to large groups.
- Proficient at time management, working to deadlines and good organisational skills.
- Self-motivated and committed to best practice.
Employer certification / accreditation badges
Applicant requirements
You must have appropriate UK professional registration.
The postholder will have access to vulnerable people in the course of their normal duties and as such this post is subject to the Rehabilitation of Offenders Act 1974 (Exceptions) Order 1975 (Amendment) (England and Wales) Order 2020 and as such it will be necessary for a submission for Disclosure to be made to the Disclosure and Barring Service to check for any previous criminal convictions.
Documents to download
Further details / informal visits contact
- Name
- Julie Westwell
- Job title
- Head of Facilities
- Email address
- [email protected]
- Telephone number
- 07747473187
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