Dietetic Assistant - Entry Level

Healthcare support workers (HCSWs) work as part of a team providing high quality and compassionate care to individuals. You will carry out well-defined routine clinical duties like monitoring an individual’s conditions (by checking things like blood pressure, temperature or weight), checking on their overall progress, comfort and wellbeing. Depending on where you work, you may also help them to eat, drink, wash, dress or go to the toilet. You will prepare individuals for healthcare activities carried out by other members of the healthcare team, looking after them before, during and/or after those activities in line with their care plan. You will also carry out non-clinical duties and, depending on where you work, this could include things like keeping records, making beds, tidying up your work area, returning or cleaning the equipment used during a clinical activity. You will be able to address straightforward problems in your day to day work, reporting concerns and changes to the appropriate person in a timely manner. HCSWs work in a range of healthcare settings and your team may include workers from both health and social care. You will report to a registered healthcare practitioner who will directly or indirectly supervise your work.

Senior support workers will use more advanced skills under the supervision of registered staff and may also work alone, with access to a registered member of staff on site or via the telephone. Responsibilities include the direct delivery of clinical, technical, or scientific activities following training. They may demonstrate own duties to other support workers, students, or less experienced staff. They will also carry out administration tasks related to patient care and the wider service. At this stage, senior support workers will contribute to service improvement and be able to make fact-based judgements.

Assistant practitioners work at a level above that of healthcare support workers and have more in-depth education and understanding about factors that influence health and ill-health, for example anatomy and physiology. Support workers at this level will possess enhanced skills in their area of work, which may be a specialist clinical area. They will provide routine and non-routine care and support, including to service users with more complex needs and making assessment of progress. They can demonstrate own activities to new or less experienced employees and provide training to others.

Dietitians are predominantly employed by the NHS, working in hospitals (seeing patients both on wards and in out-patient clinics) and in the community (for example seeing patients in GP practices, care homes, schools, health centres or seeing people in their own home). Dietitians are also employed in the food industry (including clinical nutrition companies) and there maybe opportunity for employment in higher education, sport, media, and national and local government. Some dietitians will be freelance and self-employed. The broad purpose of the occupation is to use advanced communication and behaviour-change skills to enable people to make lifestyle and food choices to improve their health. Dietitians work in partnership with individual to assess, diagnose and monitor the impact of jointly agreed treatment plans.

Enhanced Clinical Practitioners are qualified health and social care professionals who are working at an enhanced level of practice with specific knowledge and skills in a field of expertise. They manage a discrete aspect of a patient’s care within their current level of practice, which will be particular to a specific context, be it a client group, a skill set or an organisational context. This is in contrast to Advanced Clinical Practitioners who have developed their knowledge and skills to an advanced level of practice and would manage the whole episode of a patient’s clinical care, from the time they first present, through to the end of the episode.

Advanced Clinical Practitioners are experienced clinicians who demonstrate expertise in their scope of practice. Advanced Clinical Practitioners manage defined episodes of clinical care independently, from beginning to end, providing care and treatment from the time an individual first presents through to the end of the episode, which may include admission, referral or discharge or care at home. They carry out their full range of duties in relation to individuals’ physical and mental healthcare and in acute, primary, urgent and emergency settings (including hospitals, general practice, individuals’ homes, schools and prisons, and in the public, independent, private and charity sectors). They combine expert clinical skills with research, education and clinical leadership within their scope of practice. Advanced Clinical Practitioners work innovatively on a one to one basis with individuals as well as part of a wider team. They work as part of the wider health and social care team and across traditional professional boundaries in health and social care.