Locum Consultant in Palliative Medicine

Job responsibilities

JOB SUMMARY

To work together with the other palliative medicine consultants in the provision of medical services to patients of St Elizabeth Hospice, James Paget Hospital and East Coast Community Healthcare and to support staff. To develop services and improve integrated working between local Palliative Care providers (Hospice, Hospital and in the wider community of the Integrated Care Systems).

GENERAL

This post has arisen following a readjustment of posts following retirement and changes to team working patterns associated with expansion into the Great Yarmouth and Waveney Area. This post is 0.8 WTE for one year. Terms and Conditions will be based on the current NHS Consultant Contract, (see Job Plans below) with the postholders contract held at the Hospice and there will be an honorary contract with the James Paget Hospital and ECCH as required.

The new post holder will join a growing medical team who work collaboratively and supportively to cover services across the two service areas, and rotation of area of responsibility is usual.Current consultant provision is 5.1 WTE (Hospice) of which 0.2 WTE supports Ipswich hospital alongside another 0.95 WTE consultant. There will be cover from the other consultants for leave and as need arises. There are also 3 full time Nurse Consultants embedded within the team, one of whom provides clinical and service development support for Great Yarmouth and Waveney services.

There are two Specialty Registrars on the East of England Palliative Medicine Specialty Training Scheme. There are also four middle grade doctors providing support to both the IPUs as well as the outpatient clinical areas. There are 6 GP vocational training scheme doctors on attachment rotating with other specialties and two foundation year doctors.

The team works closely alongside the full multidisciplinary team including nurses, Clinical Nurse Specialists, healthcare assistants, nurse associates, Physiotherapists, Occupational Therapists, counsellors, spiritual care workers and volunteers.

The On call commitment is approximately 1 in 9 second on call with 3% availability supplement. This provides telephonic medical and symptom control advice to St Elizabeth Hospice, Ipswich Hospital, West Suffolk Hospital and St Nicholas Hospice Care in Bury St Edmunds, James Paget Hospital (Gorleston), and community calls in Suffolk and the Great Yarmouth and Waveney area. This may involve taking calls from GPs, hospital doctors, nurses or allied healthcare professionals. There is no formal expectation of face to face reviews on call but should the consultant be on site during that time then this time will be deducted from their clinical PAs in the next week and remunerated accordingly. There may be the need to do occasional first on-call on an emergency basis and this will be compensated by a PA off in lieu for each PA done as first on-call (week night equals 1 PA and weekend equals 6 PAs).

Formal consultant appraisal will be completed by the hospice appraisal team with St Elizabeth Hospice as the designated body and the Medical Director of the Hospice as Responsible Officer. The postholder will be supported through the appraisal and revalidation process.

All new consultants can be mentored by an established consultant within the organisation or by one of the consultants from the neighbouring Palliative Care service providers to enable them to settle into the post and to support them in their initial years as a consultant. Established consultants will also have access to mentoring or support as needed.

The postholder will have shared administrative support from a pool of administrators and will have a dedicated computer station in a shared office. Additional office facilities will be available for other areas of work including St Elizabeth Hospice Ipswich site. IT team support is available.

About our services

St Elizabeth Hospice serves the population of Ipswich, East Suffolk, Great Yarmouth and Waveney, and supported almost 4,000 patients and their families last year. It was established in 1989 and has an 18-bedded inpatient unit in Ipswich as well as a substantial community team, a virtual ward and a 24/7 telephone advice line called OneCall which is at the core of the Palliative and End of Life Care Co-ordination Hub.

The hospice delivers outpatient clinics, therapy, counselling and physiotherapy services through daytime Community Care Units, with a comprehensive bereavement programme called LivingGrief that

supports families across East Suffolk. It also delivers an education programme collaboratively with St Helena Hospice in Colchester and St Nicholas Hospice in Bury St Edmunds, and works with the University of Suffolks Health and Wellbeing Institute.

The hospice is committed to encouraging Compassionate Communities as a public health approach to improving cultural confidence in supporting one another through the experience of dying, death andgrief. Active research links are being established with University of Suffolk (UoS), University of East Anglia (UEA) and University of Cambridge.

Since 2019, the hospice has been sub-contracted by East Coast Community Healthcare (ECCH) to deliver specialist palliative care in Great Yarmouth and Waveney, six specialist palliative care beds within Beccles Hospital, a specialist community team and providing in-reach support to the James Paget University Hospital. Community Care Units for outpatient clinics and day attendances operate out of Beccles Hospital, the Louise Hamilton Centre in Gorleston, Martham Health Centre and the Pear Tree centre in Halesworth. Our strategic partner ECCH hold the contract for Community Services for Great Yarmouth and Waveney, as part of the Norfolk and Waveney Integrated Care System.

St Elizabeth Hospice delivers a transition programme for young adults moving on from the care of the local childrens hospice (EACH). This transition programme is called Zest and offers exchange days, medical support, social activity days and nurse-led short break respite care. There are currently 50 young adults registered with Zest and is being gradually extended to a wider geographical footprint.

In East Suffolk, the hospice works closely with Ipswich Hospital and is a full member of the Ipswich and East Suffolk Alliance, and the Suffolk and North East Essex Integrated Care Partnership (ICP). In Great Yarmouth and Waveney the hospice has representation on the Place Board and the Norfolk and Waveney Programme Board.

St Elizabeth Hospice has 400 employees and 1,500 volunteers, including 800 volunteers in our 36 retail stores and three Moments coffee shops. We also have a social enterprise domiciliary care agency called St Elizabeth Care Agency, whose profits contribute to the hospices charitable funds.

James Paget University Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust

The James Paget Hospital is part of James Paget University Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust and provides care to a population of approximately 230,000 residents across Great Yarmouth, Lowestoft and Waveney. The main site is in Gorleston and the Hospital formed a Foundation trust in 2006.

The Trust provides a full range of general acute services and works collaboratively with a number of local primary care colleagues, community services and other acute trusts, to ensure that patients receive the best care in the right place. The Trust has approximately 500 inpatient beds located on the James Paget Hospital site. These are a mix of critical, intensive and high dependency care, general surgery and medicine, maternity, paediatrics and neonatal, and escalation beds used when experiencing high demand. They employ over 3,000 staff, both part and full time, making them the largest local employer in the area. As a University Hospital, the Trust trains over one third of the medical students from the University of East Anglia and has a strong national reputation for research and excellence in the quality of training facilities.

Specialist Palliative Care input to the Hospital is currently 9-5, 5 days a week with face to face visits Monday to Friday and telephone support at weekends, and is run jointly with the community service with the aim of optimising continuity as much as possible and to provide robust service provision across clinical areas. The new service will continue with the joint service model whilst providing palliative medicine consultant input to support clinical services, education and service development. The Hospital Team currently assesses approximately 150 patients a month.

East Coast Community Healthcare CIC (ECCH)

ECCH is a staff owned Social Enterprise, providing community based NHS and social care in Norfolk & Suffolk with at least 70,000 people registered as service users. In addition to providing adult community services for the Great Yarmouth and Waveney area ECCH run the Beccles Hospital. ECCH hold the contract for local community services of which the specialist palliative care service provision provided by St Elizabeth Hospice is a component.

Beccles Hospital

The six specialist palliative care beds are situated in Beccles Hospital. Beccles Hospital is an intermediate care unit with in-patient facilities for those requiring medical care or therapy that do not require acute care in a general hospital. The ward is staffed by registered nurses, health care assistants, therapists and with regular support from Beccles Health centre GPs (weekdays) to the non-specialist beds.

In addition to the Beccles Hospital nursing staff there is additional clinical support from a Nurse Consultant in Palliative Medicine (1 WTE) alongside the Specialty Registrar in Palliative Medicine, 1 specialty grade doctor, GPST posts, foundation year doctor and Palliative Medicine consultants. Emergency out of hours support is provided by the local out of hours GP service (based on site) with specialist advice available via St Elizabeth Hospice Onecall and the consultant on call.

Qualifications

Essential

• Registered medical qualification.
• MRCP, MRCGP or equivalent.
• Full registration with GMC and name on Specialist Register for Palliative Medicine on date of taking up appointment.

Desirable

• Other Higher Degree or Diploma (eg Diploma or MSc in Palliative Medicine or MD).

Other

Essential

• Experience of postgraduate teaching.
• Car driver with driving licence, (driving will be an essential part of day to day work in this area).

Desirable

• Teaching skills course and /or qualification.

Personal Qualities

Essential

• Effective communicator.
• Able to work in a close-knit team and co-operate with all medical, nursing and other healthcare staff.
• Flexible, able to cover colleagues absence.
• Professional attitude towards work, reliability, good record of attendance and tidy personal appearance.

Desirable

• Familiarity with information technology and general computer skills.

Administration

Essential

• Experience in day to day organisation of specialist palliative care services.

Desirable

• Familiar with current structure of NHS and conversant with recent initiatives and changes.

Audit / Research / Publications

Essential

• Thorough understanding of principles of medical audit.
• Experience in undertaking and completing audit projects.
• Knowledge of the principles of medical research and of the palliative care literature.

Desirable

• Presentation or Publication of Audit results.
• Research experience.
• Publication of research and /or review article(s).

Experience

Essential

• Wide experience in all aspects of palliative care, culminating in entry onto the GMC specialist register via CCT , CESR or European community rights.
• Experience in medical procedures such as paracentesis.

Desirable

• Experience of general medicine and other specialties such as oncology, care of the elderly, general practice.
• Advanced Communication skills course or qualification.

Management

Essential

• Possession of basic management skills.

Desirable

• Management course and /or qualification.

Disclosure and Barring Service Check

This post is subject to the Rehabilitation of Offenders Act (Exceptions Order) 1975 and as such it will be necessary for a submission for Disclosure to be made to the Disclosure and Barring Service (formerly known as CRB) to check for any previous criminal convictions.

UK Registration

Applicants must have current UK professional registration. For further information please see NHS Careers website (opens in a new window).