Experienced nurses

All nurses receive a hospital induction, and induction relevant to the areas you be working in. The programmes vary depending on your speciality, but all will focus on orientation to the clinical area, training on equipment, meeting your mentors and team leaders. There will be a period of supervision, again depending on area, to ensure you are provided with the required skills and confidence to deliver high quality care to our patients and their families.

All areas run foundation courses relevant to specialities represented in the trust (cardiac, neuro, metabolic, blood cells and cancer, respiratory, ENT, surgery, neonatal).

Undertaking additional training ensures you develop you knowledge and skills through academic study and practical application to gain a qualification in speciality. Specialist modules are run by subject matter experts in partnership with the academic team from the GLA. Please see the section on academic modules for more information. Some of modules we offer

We offer a range of modules for experienced nurses including:

• Care of the child or young person with a cardiac condition
• Care of the child or young person with a renal condition
• Care of the child or young person in a high dependency unit
• Care the child or young person undergoing haemopoietic stem cell transplantation
• Fundamental care of the child and young person
• Gradcert/ PGcert in paediatric intensive care nursing
• Advanced clinical skills in paediatric ventilator management
• Paediatric advanced life support

There are many options for career development at GOSH, such as leadership development with the Chief Nurse Junior Fellow programme – Our leaders of the future The Chief Nurse Fellowship programme has had 5 learners in 2022-2023. The Chief Nurse Fellowship programme has highlighted the positive change that our early career nurses can have when supported with QI projects in practice. It gives nurses the opportunity to develop themselves and be able to influence change within the teams they work in.

We also offer support to help you gain promotion within the organisation with ‘stepping up’ programmes, such as ‘stepping up to a six’ for those Band 5s who are thinking of their first promotion, as well as ‘stepping up to a seven’ and ‘stepping up to be a matron’.

Each development programme has the same themes of leadership, conflict resolution and resilience, and builds upon these themes as you progress through your career.

Internal Transfers give you the opportunity to explore a different clinical specialty at GOSH, without the need for undertaking the normal recruitment process.

As long as you have been employed by GOSH for a minimum of 9 months and are not subject to any formal monitoring processes (performance, absence or conduct) then an internal transfer could be your next career step!

An internal (sideways) transfer is an option for the following staff groups:

• Band 3 – Healthcare Assistant
• Band 4 – Senior Healthcare Assistant / Nursing Associate
• Band 5 – Staff Nurse
• Band 6 – Senior Staff Nurse/Junior Sister or Junior Charge Nurse

In addition to clinical support provided by your team leaders, mentors and practice educators, GOSH have 31 Professional Nurse Advocates (PNA) a role that was developed as part of a national initiative led by the Chief Nursing Office in England to support nurses in the recovery phase of the Covid pandemic. Our PNA’s support the health and well-being of nurses, lead, support, advocate and deliver improvements in patient care through quality improvement.

They use a structured model named Advocating and Educating for Quality Improvement (A-EQUIP) to ensure staff receive consistent support and guidance in the following areas:

• Restorative clinical supervision
• Education and development (including career conversations)
• Personal action for quality improvement
• Monitoring, evaluation and quality control

You can view our current vacancies or organise a visit by contacting Nursing.Jobs@gosh.nhs.uk