Senior Social Worker - Renal Services

Job summary

We are recruiting for a Senior Renal Support Worker who shares our vision to be trusted to provide consistently outstanding care and exemplary service to our patients.

This is an excellent opportunity for an experienced and compassionate senior social worker to lead our renal social work service at the Lister Hospital, Stevenage.

The post holder will provide high-quality psychosocial support to renal patients and their families, while leading and developing renal social work services within a multidisciplinary team environment.

At the heart of everything we do are our core values:Include,Respect, andImprove. We encourage you to embrace these values throughout the recruitment process and in your role with us.

Main duties of the job

To carry out specialist psychosocial assessments in a variety of settings, inpatient and outpatient environments for patients with complex renal conditions.

To manage a complex caseload autonomously and provide expert advice to the wider renal team.

To lead professional development within the renal social work team and contribute to service improvement, education, audit and research activities.

To line manage band 6 roles within the renal social work team.

To work collaboratively with healthcare professionals, local authorities, charities and community agencies.

Advocate for patients' rights and assist with care planning, including end of life and advance care planning.

About us

At East and North Hertfordshire Teaching NHS Trust, we are proud of the range of general and specialist services we provide and our 6,000 or so dedicated staff ensure our patients get the best care. Our ability to be flexible and innovative in the way in which we work and deliver our services to our catchment has never been more important than it is now.

We run the following hospitals:

• The Lister Hospital, Stevenage
• New Queen Elizabeth II (New QEII), Welwyn Garden City
• Hertford County, Hertford
• Mount Vernon Cancer Centre (MVCC), Northwood

We have ambitious plans to become an outstanding, patient-led Trust where dedicated staff provide high-quality, compassionate care to our patients. We continue to undergo significant transformation and our staff and patients are at the heart of delivering this ambitious agenda.

We are committed to a positive work life balance for our employees. This means that any employee is entitled to seek to work flexible working patterns and we are committed to listen and consider all requests. Such requests, of course, have to be made and considered formally, and will need to be balanced against service needs, but our starting point will always be to find ways to support making them happen.

Job responsibilities

Please see the attached Job Description and Person Specification information pack for further detailed information regarding this role.

Person specification

Qualifications

Essential

• Degree or relevant qualification in Social Work

Previous Experience

Essential

• Experience of Adult Safeguarding
• Experience of working within a multi-disciplinary team
• Experience of supporting patients with life-long or life-limiting conditions
• Experience of working across health and Social Care teams

Skills

Essential

• Ability to undertake advanced psychosocial assessments in complex situations
• Ability to manage complex caseload autonomously
• Ability to make decisions of uncertainty and risk
• Excellent communication skills in sensitive or distressing situations

Desirable

• Ability to provide professional advice to MDT members

Other Requirements

Essential

• Experience and evidence of engagement around equality, diversity and inclusion issues in relation to policy, service development and service delivery in respect of both services to users and management of staff
• Role model our Trust values every day

Knowledge

Essential

• Statutory legislation and practice guidance (including Care Act, 2014, NHS and Community Care Act, Carers and Equality Opportunities Act, Mental Capacity Act 2005)