Head of Nutrition and Dietetics

Birmingham Women's and Children's NHS Foundation Trust

Head of Nutrition and Dietetics

The closing date is 02 March 2026

We are looking for an exceptional individual to lead the Nutrition and Dietetics team at Birmingham Women's and Children's NHS Foundation Trust. The successful post holder will be central to overseeing and advancing our nutrition and dietetics department. Your expertise and leadership will shape the provision of nutritional care throughout the Trust, ensuring the delivery of evidence based practices are exceptional patient outcomes.

Main duties of the job

• Provide operational management and a high level of professional leadership for the Dietetic service at BWC
• Be accountable for the delivery of a high quality and safe clinical dietetic service and contributing to the smooth operation of patient care pathways
• Responsible for developing services within a Quality and Governance framework
• Responsible for supporting the development of the current and future Paediatric Dietetic workforce, looking for opportunities for role development, ensuring sufficient capacity
• Promote the involvement of Dietetics at all levels across the Trust and the wider IPC through proactive team working
• To develop and support innovative working practices, and to drive and support continuous improvement

About us

Birmingham Women's and Children's NHS Foundation Trust is the first of its type in the UK. Our Trust was formed in February 2017 to drive forward our commitment to provide the highest quality, world class physical and mental health care for our women, children and families. Uniting our hospitals means more seamless care; more investment to make greater advances in our specialist treatment and world leading neo natal and fetal work. Importantly, it also gives us a greater voice in shaping the future of family centred care.

Birmingham Children's Hospital is a UK leading specialist paediatric centre with an international reputation in several areas.

Birmingham Women's Hospital is one of two dedicated women's hospitals in the UK, with the busiest single site maternity unit, delivering more than 8,200 babies a year offering a full range of gynaecological, maternity and neonatal care.

Forward Thinking Birmingham (FTB) Mental Health Services are a unique, innovative community and inpatient mental health partnership. Alongside partners FTB offers care pathways of mental health assessment and treatment for young people aged 0 25 years old.

Our Trust is committed to creating the best place to work. We believe in promoting and enhancing inclusion, diversity and equality and encourage applications from all areas of the community, who meet the criteria for the role, regardless of age, gender identity, disability, race, religion or sexual orientation.

Job responsibilities

Please refer to the attached job description and person specification to view the full details for this opportunity at Birmingham Womens and Childrens NHS Foundation Trust.

When completing your application, please ensure you have evidenced how you meet the job description and person specification to include transferable experience, qualifications, skills along with professional registration details (if applicable).

Occasionally we receive a large number of applications for our roles and when that happens we sometimes bring the closing date forward, so please apply promptly to avoid disappointment.

Person Specification Qualifications

• Educated to degree level or equivalent with further specialist qualification in Dietetics at Masters level or equivalent
• HCPC Registration as Dietician
• Recognised leadership Qualification
• Registered member of Professional association E.G BDA
• Post graduate training in paediatric Dietetics at Masters level or equivalent

Knowledge and Nature of Experience

• Substantial post registration clinical Paediatric Dietetic experience and recognised expert within clinical specialty
• Extensive experience of training and experience of supporting and supervising post graduate students
• Evidence of professional activity at national level, contribution to policy and practice guidelines
• Extensive experience in a senior NHS leadership role
• Experience of audit and quality cycle, and integration of learning into practice

Analytical and judgement Skills

• Expert clinical skills in specialist professional practice with the ability to deliver complex and sensitive information to carers and children
• Ability to work across professional boundaries, advocating multi-disciplinary working and role modelling effective team leadership
• Excellent negotiation, reflective, analytic and problem solving skills
• To have personal resilience to enable the delivery of work to a high standard and to deadline whilst working under pressure
• Proven leadership skills including the management of conflict and change management
• Excellent self organisation skills, including clinical caseload management, and flexibility to deal with unpredictable and changing priorities
• Highly developed coaching and mentoring skills to support the development of colleagues

Professional/ magerial/specialist knowledge

• Demonstrate alignment with the values and beliefs of the Trust
• Demonstrate an understanding of the practices of equality and inclusion in the delivery of this role
• Punctual and flexible across hours of work when required

Personal Skills/ Abilities and attributes

• Ability to engage, empower, motivate and develop others to strengthen leadership capacity and capability
• Ability to concentrate on complex managerial and clinical demands
• Open and honest with a high degree of personal integrity
• Ability to cope with frequent exposure to demanding, distressing/ emotional situations

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.

Birmingham Women's and Children's NHS Foundation Trust