Blood Borne Virus Nurse Specialist, Band 6

Blood Borne Virus Specialist Nurse, Band 6 (30 hours a week)

This is an exciting opportunity for a motivated and experienced Registered Nurse to join the Viral Hepatitis Clinical Nurse specialist team. This role will be central to the provision of a range of specialist services for patients within a unique and cohesive multi-disciplinary environment.

- Provide testing for Hepatitis C (HCV), Hepatitis B (HBV) and HIV infection. Where appropriate make referrals for treatment and support service users to access treatment.

- Reduce barriers to testing and vaccination by providing services in locations easily accessible by the substance users.

- Where necessary provide vaccination for HBV

- Provide information and advice on blood borne viruses, treatment and routes of transmission.

- Raise awareness of BBV's, transmission, treatment and significance of infection as a key public health issue with service users and professionals.

- Provide community monitoring and support to patients on treatment for HCV.

Main duties of the job

- Provide regular scheduled clinics within service provider bases across the county (VIA, homeless healthcare team, Nelson Trust etc).

- Provide health and life-style advice to enable service users to minimise their risk from BBVs.

- Provide pre-test discussion/preparation for the consequences of receiving positive results and provide & discuss the results of the tests.

- Obtain samples for BBV testing and to enable seamless referral for treatment as necessary.

- Make timely referrals to the Specialist Services for the treatment of HBV, HCV and HIV infection and motivate/support service users to access that treatment.

- Where service users test positive for one or more of the BBVs, with consent of the service user, refer sexual partners & close household contacts of that individual to their GP practice and initiate contact trace.

- Where service user consent has been established communicate individual appointment attendance and intervention status to the referring agency.

- Provide HBV vaccination and or boosters.

- Raise awareness with the service user about the risks of transmission of BBVs to close household contacts and sexual partners.

- Working within the care pathway in partnership with the senior specialist nurse for viral hepatitis and the medical teams to order the necessary investigations, provide clinical advice and provide treatment and care to patients.

Gloucestershire Hospitals is one of the largest hospital trusts in England serving a diverse population of almost 620,000 people. We provide acute hospital services from two large district general hospitals, Cheltenham General Hospital and Gloucestershire Royal Hospital. Maternity Services are also provided at Stroud Maternity Hospital.

Our people are at the heart of what we do. Our workforce is almost 9,000 strong and our caring and dedicated staff are recognised as providing good and outstanding patient-centred care across a range of clinical areas. We also have exceptional teams of professional services staff underpinning our vision every step of the way.

We are committed to recruiting the best people to work with us to achieve our vision of providing Best Care for Everyone and our success depends on the commitment and dedication of our staff.