A Vacancy at Manchester University NHS Foundation Trust.
We are excited to be recruiting to a newly created post of Senior Specialist Food Service Dietitian – Patient Dining.
This role will :
Support and provide professional advice on the nutritional aspects of the patient catering strategy and provision cross site within Manchester University NHS Foundation Trust. This will involve working with caterers, nurses, Dietitians, Nutrition Nurses, Speech and Language therapists, Estates and Facilities staff and external contracted and non-contracted suppliers.
Ensure that the nutritional content of the menu is in line with national recommendations and national standards ensuring the current capacity nutritional analysis are freely available to meet the Trust’s requirements in line with national priorities and performance targets.
Work to develop a consistent approach to the provision of the catering service to meet the diversity of the nutritional needs of Inpatients by ensuring innovation and flexibility within the catering system.
Be involved in strategic planning and service development within Trust patient & retail catering and the wider dietetic profession.
Support in training of dietetic students in relation to aspects of patient catering
The full range of duties are outlined in the body of the job description. A summary of these are outlined below:
• Lead strategic planning and service development in the nutritional aspects of the catering strategy for the Trust and all trust sites.
• Plan and implement nutritional aspects of the Trust catering strategy through liaison with internal and external stakeholders.
• Provide advice at an advanced level to patients, caterers and other health and social care professionals.
• Ensure all hospital menus (including special diets and religious/cultural menus) are nutritionally adequate and reflect best practice guidelines including hospital food standards, allergen information and IDDSI recommendations.
• Monitor, audit and continually develop nutritional aspects of the Nutrition and Hydration Strategy in line with patient requirements and changes in government directives/National Priorities and performance targets.
MFT is England’s largest NHS Trust with a turnover of £2.5bn & is on a different scale than most other NHS Trusts. We’re creating an exceptional integrated health & social care system for the 1 million patients who rely on our services every year.
Bringing together 10 hospitals & community services from across Manchester, Trafford & beyond, we champion collaborative working & transformation, encouraging our 28,000 workforce to pursue their most ambitious goals. We set standards that other Trusts seek to emulate so you’ll benefit from a scale of opportunity that is nothing short of extraordinary.
We’ve also created a digitally enabled organisation to improve clinical quality, patient & staff experience, operational effectiveness & driving research and innovation through the introduction of Hive; our brand-new Electronic Patient Record system which we’ve launched in September 2022.
We’re proud to be a major academic Research Centre & Education provider, providing you with a robust infrastructure to encourage and facilitate high-quality research programmes. What’s more, we’re excited to be embarking on our new Green Plan which will set out how MFT continues to play its part in making healthcare more sustainable.
At MFT, we create and foster a culture of inclusion and belonging, provide equal opportunities for career development that are fair, open and transparent, protecting your health and wellbeing and shaping the future of our organisation together.
The successful candidate will work closely with estates, facilities, nursing and dietetic colleagues to ensure that the menus that we offer to the patients fulfil their nutrition, hydration and cultural needs.
The role requirements are set out in The BDA's Nutrition and Hydration Digest and include driving improvement through food and drink services that are good quality, safe, nutritionally adequate, patient-focused and represent good value for money.
This will involve extensive stakeholder engagement, involvement in menu planning, training and procurement.
Due to the strong involvement with the catering department and patient dining this role reports directly through estates and facilities, however a professional link with be maintained with the Dietetics department to ensure professional accountability and continues professional development.
To find out more about the key responsibilities and the specific skills and experience you’ll need, take a look at the Job Description & Person Specification attachments under the ‘Supporting Documents’ heading. So that you’re even more equipped to make an informed decision to apply to us, you’ll need to take time to read the ‘Candidate Essentials Guide’that sits with the Job Description and Person Specification. This document provides you with details about the Trust, our benefits and outlines how ‘we care for you as you care for others’. Most importantly, it also contains critical information you’ll need to be aware of before you submit an application form.
COVID-19 vaccination remains the best way to protect yourself, your family, your colleagues and of course patients from the virus when working in our healthcare settings. Whilst COVID-19 vaccination is not currently a condition of employment, we do encourage our staff to get vaccinated. If you are unvaccinated, there is helpful advice and information available by searching on the ‘NHS England’ website where you can also find out more about how to access the vaccination.
Diversity Matters
MFT is committed to promoting equality of opportunity, celebrating and valuing diversity and eliminating any form of unlawful discrimination across our workforce, ensuring our people are truly representative of the communities we serve. All individuals regardless of age, disability, gender reassignment, marriage and civil partnership, pregnancy and maternity, race, religion or belief, sex and sexual orientation are encouraged to apply for this post. As an inclusive employer, we are here to support you. If you have any special requirements to help you with your application, email our team atresourcing@mft.nhs.uk.
We’re looking forward to hearing from you!
This advert closes on Monday 8 Jan 2024
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