Specialty Doctor

Job responsibilities

The role entails but is not limited to:

Clinical

The post holder will participate in the planning, development and delivery of palliative medical care to patients by:

Providing continuity of medical care on the inpatient unit and being responsible with the medical team for the day-to-day management of patients admitted to the IPU.

• Performing a full holistic assessment of new patients and providing on-going medical review for existing inpatients.
• Prescribing appropriately in line with hospice and the West Midlands Palliative Care Physicians Guidelines for Symptom Control, maintaining accurate and legible drug charts. Completing the requisitions for pharmaceutical and other supplies when necessary.
• Keeping comprehensive notes using the SystmOne electronic patient record.
• Participating in the consultant ward rounds and appropriate ward multi-disciplinary team meetings.
• Liaising, as needed, with other health and social care providers to ensure optimal patient care during and after discharge from Hospice services.
• Completing medical certificates of cause of death, coroners or medical examiner referrals and cremation documentation in an accurate and timely manner.
• High-quality and timely completion of administrative duties including discharge letters and death notification letters.
• Participating in the Hospice weekend medical rota

Clinical Governance

The post holder will be professionally responsible for helping to ensure robust organisational clinical governance, through active participation in activities such as:

• Clinical audit.
• Reviewing and making recommendations on the implementation of national guidelines e.g. NICE.
• Keeping up to date with medical developments, new drugs, treatments and medications, relating to palliative care and sharing learning.

Teaching and research

Be involved in supervising and teaching medical students and other health and social care professionals on placement, in collaboration with the rest of the multi-disciplinary team

Contribute to the internal teaching programme for members of the multi-disciplinary team and, if appropriate, externally as part of the Hospices commitment to educating other clinical teams about end-of-life care.

There is the opportunity to develop relevant research interests.

Managerial and Leadership

Take on leadership and management activity, to be determined according to skills and professional development needs.

General

Undertake Continuous Professional Development. St Giles Hospice will encourage and support this.

• Travel between the 2 St Giles Hospice sites if required. Travelling expenses will be paid by St Giles Hospice.
• Be aware of his/her responsibilities towards health and safety and to adhere to the fire regulations.
• Understand and uphold the Hospice Policies and Procedures as applicable.
• Undergo annual medical appraisal and engage fully with Medical Revalidation..

A formal job plan will be agreed during induction and at intervals thereafter, according to service need.

The successful candidate will, on initial appointment and thereafter, be required to inform the Hospice of any regular commitments in respect of private professional services or fee-paying services. There will be a similar requirement in respect of additional NHS responsibilities or other external duties.

The post holder must be fully registered with the General Medical Council. It is essential to maintain appropriate membership of a recognised medical defence organisation. Employees at the Hospice do not benefit from NHS indemnity.

Just so you know:

We may review applications before the application review date, however, if you apply after the application review date, your application may not be considered. We will accept applications until we have successfully filled the role, this may be earlier than the closing date.

If you have not heard within 14 days of the application close date, then please consider that your application has been unsuccessful at this time.

As part of your application your data will be managed in line with St Giles Hospice Privacy Policy and kept for 6 months. If you would like to see this in full, please visit https://www.stgileshospice.com/privacy-policy/

Personal Attributes

Essential

• Empathetic
• Team player
• Able to work under pressure
• Collaborative
• Ambassador for St Giles Hospice

Other Requirements

Essential

• Valid driving licence
• Eligibility to work in the UK
• Please note that St Giles Hospice does not hold a sponsorship licence and is therefore unable to accept sponsorship requests

Experience

Essential

• Essential
• Experience of Specialist Palliative care, or related discipline
• Experience of teaching medical, nursing and other healthcare professionals
• Understanding of UK hospice movement
• Understanding of clinical audit and quality improvement methodology
• Demonstrated ability to work in multidisciplinary teams
• Confidence to work independently (weekends), with phone support from a 2nd on call consultant
• Ability to gain confidence and trust of patients families and colleagues
• Ability to respond to change
• Commitment to continuing personal development and medical education
• Developed strategies for ensuring personal and professional resilience

Skills

Essential

• Excellent communication skills, with high standard of spoken and written English
• Proven ability to manage patients with complex physical, psychological and social problems effectively
• Leadership and management skills
• IT literacy
• Excellent interpersonal skills

Qualifications

Essential

• Qualified Medical Practitioner
• GMC Registration with licence to practice (no restrictions)
• Minimum of 4 years post qualification experience with at least 2 years in a UK health setting and related specialty
• Palliative care qualification (e.g. certificate or diploma) or willingness to work towards
• Appropriate Medical liability cover

Desirable

• Teaching course
• Leadership and Management course

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).