Dietitian at Avon and Wiltshire Mental Health Partnership NHS Trust

The job at Avon and Wiltshire Mental Health Partnership NHS Trust

Dietitians assess, diagnose and treat diet and nutrition problems, translating nutritional science into practical advice and clinical treatment. On a hospital ward that can mean calculating and recommending tube or intravenous feeding, managing refeeding risk and reviewing biochemistry; in the community it can mean supporting people with diabetes, coeliac disease, food allergy, kidney disease, cancer or eating disorders. Dietitians also run group education, train other staff, work in public health and research, and advise industry and government. People of all ages with medical conditions affected by diet — including digestive, kidney, metabolic and swallowing disorders, malnutrition, food allergy, obesity and eating disorders — as well as healthy populations.

At a mental health trust such as Avon and Wiltshire Mental Health Partnership NHS Trust, that work means a mental health caseload across inpatient units, community mental health teams, crisis services and, in most organisations, child and adolescent and secure services. Rotations here tend to move between inpatient and community teams rather than between body systems, and supervision arrangements matter more than in almost any other setting. Across the profession as a whole, dietitians work in settings including NHS acute trust, intensive care and ward-based services, community and GP practice, renal and oncology services and eating disorder services — an organisation of this type will run some of those services and not others, which is why two posts with the same job title in the same city can be very different jobs.

Pay is not an employer decision. Agenda for Change is negotiated nationally and set separately in each of the four nations, so Avon and Wiltshire Mental Health Partnership NHS Trust pays band 5 exactly what every other NHS employer in England pays it: £32,073 at the bottom of the band on the 2026/27 scale. For context, median full-time pay across all occupations in the South West was £37,195 in 2025. What genuinely differs between two employers is the caseload, how rotations are structured, how much protected time you get for supervision and continuing professional development, how much band 6 progression is built into the establishment, and how far you travel between sites. Those are the questions worth asking at interview.