Job summary
Are you an experienced Registered Nurse with a passion for Palliative and end of life care?. Are you looking for an opportunity to lead and inspire a dedicated team while making a meaningful difference in the lives of patients with life limiting illnesses and those important to them?

We're looking for a compassionate and confident Team Leader to join our dedicated Inpatient Unit team at St Peter & St James Hospice. In this vital and rewarding role, you'll provide visible clinical and managerial leadership, supporting the delivery of high-quality, individualised palliative care.

Main duties of the job
Provide clinical and managerial leadership within the Inpatient Unit, overseeing nursing staff, healthcare assistants, and volunteers to ensure the delivery of high-quality, person-centred palliative care.

Coordinate patient admissions, referrals, discharges, and Continuing Healthcare-funded patients while maintaining effective patient flow and accurate records. Lead clinical shifts, including undertaking the Nurse in Charge role, ensuring safe staffing levels and efficient workforce deployment. Support patients and families through advance care planning and end-of-life care discussions.

Supervise, mentor, and develop team members through training, performance management, and clinical education. Lead quality improvement initiatives, audits, risk assessments, and incident investigations to enhance patient safety and care standards.

Contribute to the development of clinical policies and procedures, working collaboratively with multidisciplinary teams to deliver outstanding care while promoting a positive, inclusive, and compassionate hospice culture.

About us
St Peter & St James Hospice provides expert care, free of charge, to adults living with a life-limiting illness in our community. Our support extends to friends and families too. Our community includes Burgess Hill, Haywards Heath, Lewes, Uckfield and everywhere in between.

We have been serving our community for 50 years and our vision is to ensure we continue to be a safe, modern, sustainable hospice for generations to come. This is a fantastic opportunity for an experienced nurse who is compassionate, motivated and committed to delivering exceptional palliative care.

We offer a supportive working environment, opportunities for professional development and leadership growth, and the chance to be part of a team that truly makes a difference to patients and families every day.

Details
Date posted: 26 August 2026
Pay scheme: Other
Salary: £36,833 to £44,353 a year
Contract: Permanent
Working pattern: Part-time
Reference number: STP1223201
Job locations: North Common Road, North Chailey, Lewes, West Sussex, BN8 4ED, United Kingdom

Job responsibilities

• Work collaboratively with other Healthcare professionals to provide patient care which promotes best practice and maintains the patients optimum independence.
• Use outcome and complexity measurements (OACC) competently and understands the importance of accurate data management for care services.
• Work with patients and families to create management plans addressing their individual physical, psychosocial and spiritual needs reflecting the holistic principles of palliative care and always promoting dignity.
• Demonstrate specialist clinical knowledge and expertise in palliative care to provide excellent patient care and to recognise the need for, instigate and interpret complexinformation and clinical investigations to address reversible causes of symptoms.
• Demonstrate advanced communication skills with patients, carers and other health care professionals both face to face and via the telephone to share and gather information, offer support and advice and, initiate conversations with patients and their families to enable them to make informed decisions about their care at end of life.
• Initiate and lead conversations surrounding advance care planning ensuring patients and carers are aware of choices at each stage.
• Recognise signs of dying to initiate anticipatory prescribing so that symptoms can be addressed.
• Maintain practical skills such as venepuncture, management of PICC lines, and male /female catheterisation and intravenous drug administration.
• Ensure adequate ordering to control stocks of medical supplies and drugs.
• Work within the boundaries of a multi-disciplinary team, instigate, lead, and contribute to multi-disciplinary discussions, including multidisciplinary team meetings, and refer to other members of the team to enhance patient care.
• Plan, organise and allocate staff according to competencies, workload, and patient dependency to provide excellent patient care and best use of resources, across all hospice services.
• Frequently undertake the role of the nurse in charge.
• Take part in clinical audit and undertake risk assessments in line with the Trusts clinical governance processes.
• Undertake activities associated with the line management of Registered Nurses, Paramedics, Nursing Associates and HealthCare Assistants (including but not restricted to supervision and support, absence and performance management, recruitment, and induction)
• Support the management of ward support volunteers.
• Undertake mentorship of student nurses and return to practice nurses.
• Participate in teaching and education programmes and assist in mentoring junior staff, student nurses and nursing assistants.
• Demonstrate presentation skills to actively contribute to education and training both internally and externally as part of sharing good practice to enhance patient care.
• Take part, under supervision, in investigations into complaints or incidents, completing the relevant sections of the accident, incident and near miss reports.
• Maintain active registration on the Nursing and Midwifery Council register and meet the requirements of nurse revalidation.

Person Specification
Personal Qualities
Essential

• Strong leadership and effective delegation skills.
• Empathetic and courteous, always treating patients and their loved ones with care and consideration.
• Ability to work flexible shifts and take part in the senior nurse on-call rota to provide appropriate delivery of service on a rolling seven-day rota basis.
• Willingness to participate in own clinical supervision ensuring personal wellbeing and resilience and safe practice.
• Ability to demonstrate leadership through engagement with innovation in practice.
• Ability to demonstrate an empathic and collaborative approach to the Team leader role.

Qualifications
Essential

• Registered Nurse with NMC registration, Education to degree level (level six)

Desirable

• Mentorship qualification
• Post-registration education in a relevant subject.
• Level 6 Leadership qualification.

Experience
Essential

• Experienced Registered Nurse with NMC registration.
• Experience of assessing and planning care for patients.
• Experience of co-ordination of clinical shifts.
• Ability to handle feedback from patients and carers including complaints, sensitively and in a timely manner.
• Demonstrate knowledge in symptom control to ensure the patient's symptoms are addressed, and to guide other members of the health care team.
• Experience of maintaining accurate written and computerised records, and minimum data requirements for accessing and recording information in accordance with NMC Guidelines for Records and Record Keeping (2009) and Code of Professional Conduct (2008).

Desirable

• Evidence of practice in a palliative care setting

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: St Peter & St James Hospice
Address: North Common Road, North Chailey, Lewes, West Sussex, BN8 4ED, United Kingdom
Employer's website: https://stpjhospice.org/ (Opens in a new tab)

Employer contact details
For questions about the job, contact: IPU Ward Manager, Alice Thomas, athomas@stpjhospice.org, 01444470212

Details
Date posted: 26 August 2026
Pay scheme: Other
Salary: £36,833 to £44,353 a year
Contract: Permanent
Working pattern: Part-time
Reference number: STP1223201
Job locations: North Common Road, North Chailey, Lewes, West Sussex, BN8 4ED, United Kingdom

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