Job overview
Are you an enthusiastic, passionate experienced paediatric nurse, looking for a new challenge and enhance your leadership skills? Do you want to work in a dedicated paediatric hospital, caring for patients and families with a holistic approach to care?
We have an exciting opportunity for you to join the Savannah Neurology and Metabolic senior nursing team, a 16 bedded unit offering a dynamic environment to widen your nursing skillset. We care for children from birth to 16 years with complex epilepsy, movement disorders, inflammatory conditions of the brain, spine and nervous systems and inherited disorders of metabolism.
As a well established referral centre, we care for patients across the whole of the South East of England, providing specialist treatments and have close links with the children's liver centre at King's College Hospital.
We will encourage you to explore the specialities further through a wide range of training and development, for example participating in internal and external courses eg Paediatric Immediate Life Support, and Paediatric Acute Nursing in Critical Care, as well as any leadership courses, to aid your development within your senior role.
What staff have said about our ward:
'It is an honour to work with such dedicated staff who are committed to making Savannah Dragonfly a place to receive compassionate care'
'They are a phenomenal group of nurses and I have so much admiration and respect for them'
Closing date: 30th April 2026
Interview date: 8th May 2026
Main duties of the job
We are seeking to recruit a motivated and adaptive experienced paediatric nurse to provide high quality specialist nursing care to children and young people.
The successful individual will have substantial post registration experience and will work as part of the nursing leadership team within Savannah Neurosciences ward. You will be responsible for supporting junior members of staff and liaise with the medical team regarding transfer of patients from the South Thames area. You will have some management responsibility as the nurse in charge, and will constantly assess the ward's needs, in order to maintain patient safety.
You will benefit from excellent support from the senior nursing management team, and will be exposed to the operational and strategic running of clinical services.
You will have excellent communication skills and demonstrate the ability to communicate effectively and professionally with families and within the multidisciplinary team, both verbally and in writing. You will be able to constructively feedback to all multidisciplinary team members to ensure ongoing and continuous improvement ensuring patient safety, positive experience and quality care.
We passionately believe in promoting care and compassion to all our patients and provide a holistic child and family-centered approach to all the children and young people in our care.
Working for our organisation
Guy’s and St Thomas’ NHS Foundation Trust comprises five of the UK’s best known hospitals – Guy’s, St Thomas’, Evelina London Children’s Hospital, Royal Brompton and Harefield – as well as community services in Lambeth and Southwark, all with a long history of high quality care, clinical excellence, research and innovation.
At Evelina, we are reminded every day of how important life is, and how important it is to look after the health and wellbeing of our staff as they balance of responsibilities in and out of work. We are committed to supporting flexible working; we want to support you to work in a way that is best for us and for our patients, and for you.
We are committed to diversity and inclusion, and creating a sense of belonging and fun for all our teams caring for women, children and families; as we continue to develop new and existing partnerships with local people, patients, neighbouring NHS organisations, local authorities and charitable bodies and GPs, we recognise the huge benefit of our workforce being reflective of the diverse communities we serve.
We are committed to supporting the professional development of staff, and have excellent training and educational offerings. Recognising that looking after babies, children and young people is incredibly rewarding, but can also bring challenge we offer amazing resources to help support our staff’s emotional wellbeing and resilience.
Detailed job description and main responsibilities
The post holder will be responsible for the assessment, planning and provision of specialist nursing advice and carries out specialist nursing procedures.
Independently manage a group of patients within the specialty whilst working as part of the multidisciplinary team, delivering individualised and personalised direct patient care.
Ensuring the safety and wellbeing of services users, and always working in a manner that promotes dignity and human rights through the adoption of person centered care principles.
Be responsible for assessing and recognising emergencies in the
speciality. To interpret information and take appropriate action and to lead others to do the same.
Act as an advocate for patients within the department, to ensure a patient orientated approach to the delivery of care and to meet standards within the NHS Plan and other relevant guidelines.
Ensure that patients’ receive high quality clinical care and a good patient experience, having regard for their customs, religious beliefs and doctrines.
To be an effective communicator with patients/carers/families regarding disease treatment and management.
Facilitate a high quality, cost effective specialist service through monitoring and audit and other quality initiatives agreed by the Trust
Set, monitor and review standards of care on a regular basis and initiate corrective action plans.
Identify and intervene where circumstances contribute to an unsafe
environment for patients and staff. To bring instances to the attention of the Sister/Charge Nurse for the area.
Ensure that the learning environment and specialist training is appropriate for both pre and post registration learners and participate in the development of appropriate programs.
The post holder will provide clinical supervision to other staff, students and may undertake research, lead clinical audits in own specialist area.
To assist the Sister/Charge Nurse in developing a culture that is
challenging, stimulating, rewarding and supportive.
Provide a leadership role model and demonstrate specialist knowledge and high standards of clinical practice and provide support or advice when necessary.
Promote and undertake nursing research updating own knowledge to promote excellence in clinical practice.
Take an active role in risk assessment, supporting implementation of strategies to minimise risk. Ensuring incidents and near misses are
reported, through promoting a no blame culture.
Ensure all staff act in accordance with Local, Hospital and Statutory
Guidelines & Policies including Health and Safety initiatives.
Please see the attached Job Description for full details.
Person specification
Skills/Knowledge/Ability
Essential criteria
1. Evidence of involvement and leadership in teaching and mentoring learners
2. Clear evidence and ability to assess, plan, implement and evaluate specialist care
3. Good communication skills and ability to deal with sensitive information. To include dealing with distressed relatives, end of life care, and other challenging situations (conflict resolution)
4. Demonstrates ability to influence and negotiate with others. Ability to organise and plan own time and that of junior staff and learners
5. Evidence of ongoing and continued professional development
Desirable criteria
6. IT Skills
Qualification
Essential criteria
7. BSC/1st degree (health related) or equivalent qualification/training and experience
8. Post registration qualification in or demonstrate relevant experience and competence (appropriate area of speciality)
Desirable criteria
9. HDU course or equivalent
Professional/Statutory Registration
Essential criteria
10. RN1/ RN2/ RN12 or RN Child Registered Nurse on the NMC register. To hold the appropriate level for the area of speciality
Values & Behaviour
Essential criteria
11. Evidence of Displaying Trust Values & Behaviours
Previous Experience
Essential criteria
12. Experience of teaching/assessing/supervising others in a clinical setting
13. Experience and evidence of co-ordinating a shift
14. Supervision and support of junior/newly qualified staff
Guy’s and St Thomas’ celebrates, respects and values the diversity of its staff and patients. We review our policies, procedures and practices to ensure that all employees, patients and carers are treated equitable according to their needs. We are actively committed to ensuring that no one who applies for a job, works or study’s at the Trust, or accesses our services is discriminated against on the grounds of race, ethnicity, nationality, disability, religion or belief, age, gender identity, gender reassignment, sexual orientation, pregnancy and maternity/paternity, or marital/civil partnership.