Job summary
NHS Band 6 Salary: £39,959 - £48,117 per annum
Contract Type: Permanent
Hours Per Week: Full time 37.5 hours

This post is full time, but consideration will be given to applicants requiring part time work.

We are looking for an enthusiastic dietitian to join our supportive, friendly and flexible paediatric team.

If you have some experience of paediatrics and are looking to expand your knowledge and skills in a busy district general hospital or are looking for a change and would like to gain experience in paediatric dietetics this may be the opportunity you are looking for.

We are looking for a dietitian who wants to learn and showcase the benefits dietitians can bring to patients, their families and to our colleagues. You should have excellent communication skills, show a commitment to team working and innovation, and be able to demonstrate the ability to work within a busy environment. This post would suit either someone with experience in Paediatrics looking to further consolidate their knowledge and skills.

Main duties of the job
Specific Core Functions

• To provide expert advice on paediatric education which involves nutritional diagnosis (interpretation and analysis of biochemistry, anthropometrics, social situation, clinical condition, drug and diet history) and the development of treatment plans (calculation of nutritional requirements and client centred goals).
• To be responsible for the development, implementation and ongoing provision of a high quality evidenced based effective dietetic service to clinical areas including allergy, oncology, gastroenterology, nutritional support (parenteral, enteral and oral), neurodisability and metabolic conditions, alongside your dietetic colleagues.
• To manage and prioritise own workload and work within professional code of conduct and assist administration staff in doing this.
• To initiate and participate in research and audit projects within paediatrics in order to provide a clinically effective service providing feedback on these locally and publishing or presenting relevant findings at governance meetings and conferences.
• Communicate highly sensitive and complex information with empathy ensuring that information is understood.
• Communicating and co-operating with other wards and departments, promoting and maintaining good working relationships within paediatric dietetics and across the organisation, giving accurate information as required and keeping everyone informed of any untoward incidents.

About us
Here at Portsmouth Hospitals University NHS Trust, we are proud to provide expert, compassionate care for our local population. We are ranked as the third in the country for research, embedding education and training across the organisation. Our main hub is the Queen Alexandra Hospital, which is one of the largest hospitals on the south coast employing over 8,700 staff.

Our patients come from all walks of life and so do we. We hire great people from a wide variety of backgrounds because it makes our hospital stronger. If you share our values and our enthusiasm for getting it right for patients, colleagues, and our community, you will find a home at Portsmouth Hospitals University NHS Trust.

The health and wellbeing of our staff is at the forefront of everything we do. We are proud to be able to offer our staff some fantastic benefits including our on-site Nursery, access to our free Beach Hut for those long summer days, our on-site Wellness Centre including a gym and a swimming pool, access to our fantastic staff networks including LGBTQ, Race Equality and DisAbility, and awards ceremonies to recognise your achievements. We believe we can offer support to all of our staff when they need it the most.

We welcome the unique contributions that you can bring in terms of your education, opinions, culture, ethnicity, race, sex, gender identity and expression, nation of origin, age, languages spoken, veterans' status, colour, religion, disability, sexual orientation, and beliefs.

Details
Date posted
24 August 2026
Pay scheme
Agenda for change
Band
Band 6
Salary
£39,959 to £48,117 a year
Contract
Permanent
Working pattern
Full-time
Reference number
REF2553Y
Job locations
Queen Alexandra Hospital
Southwick Hill Road
Portsmouth
Hampshire
PO6 3LY
United Kingdom

Job responsibilities
Portsmouth Dietitians are a friendly and supportive team of 30 dietitians and support staff providing acute and community dietetics to adults and children across the Portsmouth and Southeast Hampshire Area. We cover a large university hospital, a number of smaller community hospitals and provide outpatient activity across a variety of settings.

We pride ourselves on our supportive culture and offer development opportunities to internally develop our staff to enable them to progress in their career aspirations.

We train student dietitians from University of Surrey and University of Winchester.

The main duties of the role are varied and include providing dietetic cover to the 2 children's wards, providing cover to outpatient clinics for a range of clinical conditions including gastroenterology, neurodisability, weight management, nutrition support, allergy and enteral tube feeding, managing a caseload of community patients on home enteral feeding and providing telephone advice to a range of different health professionals.

Key Responsibilities

• To attend appropriate ward rounds, multidisciplinary meetings and case conferences within specialist areas proving expert advice based on clinical evidence with consideration of social and psychological factors.
• To manage a case load of children with complex needs who might be on home enteral feeds or requiring blended diets.
• To manage busy outpatient clinics where the caseload is varied, liaising when necessary, with health visitors, social care and school nursing team.
• To judge level of patient and carer understanding adjusting information provided accordingly and to communicate with tact, empathy and understanding where information provided is unwelcome or difficult to accept e.g. long term adherence to a restricted diet.
• To independently provide specialist, evidence-based nutritional assessment/treatment within specialist areas, potentially involving a wide range of disease/conditions, using advanced clinical reasoning and theoretical knowledge of relevant physiology and pathology.
• To work with the children's community nurses and special needs school nurses for those patients requiring artificial nutritional support in the community.
• To act autonomously assessing degree of risk and taking appropriate action to ensure patient safety and quality of care.
• To communicate accurate information regarding patients to a wide range of health care professionals within and outside of the trust and keep statistics and written records of all in patient and outpatient contacts in accordance with trust and departmental standards.
• To represent the dietetic service at a strategic and operational level as required by paediatric Team lead and Dietetic manager.
• Actively contribute to achieving the clinical governance goals/targets set by the trust and department and comply with reporting schedules for monitoring and reporting on clinical outcomes.
• Promote the health and well-being of staff, patients and their carers.
• Comply and promote compliance with Trust policies and guidelines e.g. Health and Safety, Clinical Risk and Infection Control.
• Contribute to the department pay and non-pay budgets to ensuring good housekeeping and economic use of resources.

If you are interested in finding out more about this role then we would love to hear from you.

For full job details and person specification, please refer to enclosed Job Description.

Person Specification
Experience
Essential

• Evidence of suitable experience of Dietetics.
• Experience of paediatric dietetics.
• Experience of working in multi-professional setting.
• Experience of teaching and staff training.

Desirable

• Evidence of suitable experience in Dietetics in a range of specialities (of special relevance experience in diabetes, gastroenterology, oncology and complex nutrition support).
• Experience of UK/NHS-based Dietetic practice.

Skills and Knowledge
Essential

• Good English language skills.
• Competent practitioner with knowledge of nutrition support and clinical reasoning skills.
• Good interpersonal and communication skills (oral and written) with people from a wide variety of backgrounds.
• Able to set priorities and meet deadlines.
• Able to promote the role of the dietitian.
• Ability to organise complex information and to interpret it into language suitable for different groups or individuals (patients, staff, other health professionals, the public).
• Good presentation skills and ability to work effectively single handily with individuals and groups.
• Knowledge and experience of catering systems and menu planning.
• Accurate anthropometric measurement skills.
• IT skills Internet, word processing, power point and dietary analysis.
• Understanding of professional ethics and their application.
• Understanding and commitment to clinical governance and audit.
• Able to interpret research evidence and apply to practice.

Desirable

• Experience of multidisciplinary work.
• Advanced clinical reasoning skills.
• Experience of research, audit, writing guidelines / policies, presenting to colleagues.
• Able to represent team at strategic level.
• IT skills - Excel, journal data bases.

Qualifications
Essential

• Degree/Diploma in dietetics.
• HCPC Dietitian Registration.
• Evidence of professional development and commitment to postgraduate study.

Desirable

• BDA Member.
• Post graduate study e.g. Paediatric Group module/course, teaching/education certificate, diploma in advanced dietetic practice, PENG course, BDA specialist group member, BDA branch member, evidence of research experience/working towards master's level qualification.

Disclosure and Barring Service Check
This post is subject to the Rehabilitation of Offenders Act (Exceptions Order) 1975 and as such it will be necessary for a submission for Disclosure to be made to the Disclosure and Barring Service (formerly known as CRB) to check for any previous criminal convictions.

UK Registration
Applicants must have current UK professional registration. For further information please see NHS Careers website (opens in a new window).

Employer details
Employer name
Portsmouth Hospitals University NHS Trust
Address
Queen Alexandra Hospital
Southwick Hill Road
Portsmouth
Hampshire
PO6 3LY
United Kingdom
Employer's website
https://www.porthosp.nhs.uk/work-for-us/ (Opens in a new tab)

Employer contact details
For questions about the job, contact:
Paediatric Dietitian Team Lead
Joanne Moore
Joanne.moore9@nhs.net

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