Health Visitor - Children and Families

NHS Greater Glasgow and Clyde (NHSGGC) is one of the largest healthcare systems in the United Kingdom, employing approximately 40,000 staff across a wide range of clinical and non-clinical professions and roles. We deliver acute hospital, primary, community and mental health services to a population of over 1.15 million people, and to a wider population of 2.2 million when regional and national services are included.

The Role

An exciting opportunity has arisen to join the Health Visiting service within the Children and Families service in East Renfrewshire Health and Social Care Partnership.

The Health Visitor is an autonomous practitioner who will practice within the legal and ethical framework of the Nursing and Midwifery Council (NMC) and national legislation, and who has overall responsibility for the supervision/management of a health visiting caseload, being accountable for the quality of care delivered through robust assessment, referral and communication processes and implementation of evidence-based practice interventions to address need. This includes responsibility for the day-to-day delegation and reviewing of work undertaken by team members.

The caseload size will be determined locally utilizing the national weight load measurement tool as applied to the population of the HSCP within NHS Greater Glasgow and Clyde and derived from the child population either within the GP practice/clusters/geographical locality. The Health Visitor will work collectively within multi-disciplinary/agency team to identify, plan for and address the wider Public Health needs of the health improvement agenda evidence-based practice interventions to address need.

This post is based within the Eastwood team at Eastwood Health and Care Centre but may involve working in a variety of locations within East Renfrewshire and supporting the Barrhead team.

Duration, Location, and Working Pattern:

• Permanent Contract
• Full-time position (36 hours per week)
• Location based in the Eastwood team at Eastwood Health and Care Centre.
• Shift pattern for this post are 0830 1630.

Key Responsibilities

Clinical Responsibilities:

• To undertake statutory duties on behalf of NHS Greater Glasgow & Clyde with respect to individual children within your caseload to assess, improve and support the wellbeing of children.
• To work with all professionals involved with the child or young person and their families to assess, analyse, develop and agree a multiagency child’s plan based on the agreed policies and procedures. Implement and monitor the plan to endeavour to ensure the child’s needs are met and desired outcomes achieved.
• To work in partnership with individual children’s families, working with other agencies and key stakeholders to ensure that all parties undertake their responsibilities within the agreed plan.
• The Health Visitor will work from the antenatal period to school entry, but excluding the unborn child, the HV will be responsible for receiving wellbeing concerns from a variety of sources in partner agencies (e.g. police reports) and from any member of the community. The HV will be responsible for ensuring that all information received is analysed and included in the assessment of the child’s wellbeing, needs and potential risks. The HV may through assessment of the information known and from direct contact with the family, decide that the level of concern requires instigation of Child Protection procedures. If the child’s needs are not met the HV will escalate their concerns to their line and or professional manager as determined by professional standards, policies and procedures.
• The HV will provide key input in relation to Child Protection and other vulnerable children. The HV will play a key interagency role in family assessment, planning and delivery of Child Protection services. The HV will participate in regular supervision of child protection cases and work within the child protection policies and guidelines.
• The HV will be responsible for making professional judgments and decisions about the sharing of information about each child and family. This will require a complex analysis of the level of risk to a child; the reason information needs shared, the conditions for processing under Data Protection law, GDPR and the conditions for sharing in relation to confidentiality law, and the conditions for sharing in relation to human rights (family privacy) law. The HV will follow law and guidance, but will use conservable professional judgment to reach decisions to share or not share information.