Job summary
NB: INTERVIEW DATE 12th June 2024
Pilgrims Hospices is embarking on an ambitious recruitment drive to
support transformative changes following review of our clinical strategy to enhance
supportive and end-of-life-care by expanding the senior clinical leadership
group to a multidisciplinary team.
We welcome applications from passionate candidates who would be
interested to join us as Consultant(s) in Palliative Medicine, to make a
difference to the people in East Kent, bringing comprehensive clinical
expertise and a deep commitment to holistic care.
This is a great position for new colleagues who have come to the end of
their training but also for experienced colleagues who want to help shape a new
model of palliative care provision in East Kent. The Consultant in Palliative Medicine will be
joining existing and new Nurse and Medical Consultants, working alongside Specialty
Doctors, GP and FY2 trainees as well as Specialist Registrars and Advanced
Clinical Practitioners. Pilgrims
Hospices is aligned to three medical schools and also hosts an University of
Kent led fellowship/GPwSI post.
We operate three inpatient units in Canterbury, Ashford and Margate with
typical multi-disciplinary teams to support patients in our 36 beds, in the
community including hospice at home services and in our three therapy
centres.
Main duties of the job
As a Consultant in Palliative Medicine and part of our clinical
leadership team you will be expected to practice at an advanced level to:
- Deliver high-quality patient care with expertise and autonomy;
- Develop and maintain
specialist areas of interest to support our clinical strategy;
- Collaborate with external stakeholders to develop pathways and shape processes;
- Lead and motivate teams to improve standards of practice:
- Contribute to research, service evaluation and quality assurance initiatives;
- Commit to your own Continuous Professional Development, support and coach others doing the same.
To be successful as a Consultant in Palliative Medicine you will need:
Advanced
palliative care practice experience
Strong
leadership and team motivation skills
Commitment
to evidence based practice and quality improvement
Supervisory and
educational experience required.
The Consultant in Palliative Medicine job description has been approved
by the Royal College of Physicians. If
you would like to speak to us about this role, or to arrange an informal visit,
please contact Dr. Pia Amsler on 07961 830575 or via email at pia.amsler@pilgrimshospices.org
About us
Pilgrims Hospice is the lead provider of specialist palliative care in
East Kent serving a population of over 800,000 spread across a geographical
area of over 700 square miles of a largely rural area with main urban
population in Ashford, Folkestone, Canterbury, Dover, Margate, and Ramsgate.
Please visit our website for further information on all aspects of
Pilgrims Hospices at www.pilgrimshospices.org.
Job description
Job responsibilities
MAIN PURPOSE AND SCOPE OF THE JOB:
Consultants are expected to practice at an advanced level and are able to demonstrate
the following:
An expert practice function:The Consultant must be able to deliver high quality
care to patients, enable other practitioners to maintain professional expertise, and to
be able to demonstrate a high degree of professional autonomy within their role of a
specialist within palliative care.
The Consultant will develop or maintain an area of specialist interest and support the
Medical Director and the wider executive team with the realisation of the Pilgrims
Hospices clinical strategy.
This includes the development of clinical policies, standard operating procedures and
guidelines; collaboration with relevant external stakeholders and specialists in that
topic and the development and support of working parties and champions at the
hospice.
Specialist interests might include non-malignant conditions and widening access to
minority groups.
Education, training and development function:The Consultant will contribute to
the training and education of others, establishing formal links with local education
providers. They should also contribute to the development of an education plan for
both internal and external staff to encourage learning and to support income
generation.
Professional leadership and consultancy function: The Consultant should be able
to demonstrate leadership skills which will support and motivate others, in order to
continuously improve quality of care and standards of practice. They should be a
source of expertise and knowledge for others in their specialist fields. Nurse
Consultants will work aligned with the Medical Consultants and their job description
will mirror each other except for areas where legal distinctions such as supervision of
colleagues in training, prescribing of medication and similar, become relevant.
The medical consultants are expected to act as clinical Supervisors for medical
trainees and become Educational Supervisors for trainees of higher training grades
(SpRs).
Practice, service development, research and evaluation: Consultants will
contribute to development of professional practice, through the promotion of evidence based practice and audits of standards of care. They will support research within the
hospice and evaluation of practice within their specialist fields.
Quality assurance: This role is multi-factorial and has the CQC five standards at its
heart. That is to ensure a safe, effective, caring, responsive and well-led patient centred service provision. The Medical Consultants, alongside the Nurse Consultants
will lead on creating an environment where standards of care provision are
outstanding across the clinical services working with all staff to support quality
improvement programmes.
Expert Clinical Practice:
- To be professionally accountable for all work undertaken and to practice at an
advanced level of professional autonomy in line with local/national policy and
guidance
- To work as a Consultant using advanced clinical reasoning and diagnostic
skills, prescribing, planning, and evaluating interventions for patients with
complex presentations.
- To be an authoritative expert assessor/advisor on pain and symptom
management , psychological /spiritual/ social /practical and ethical decisions at
the end of life and to work in partnership with a range of health professionals
to improve their skills in these areas.
- Develop and conduct skilled medical intervention with patients with palliative
care needs, assessing and addressing issues such as quality of life, futility,
prognosis, withdrawing and withholding treatment and end of life decision
making within an ethical framework.
- To undertake complex and sensitive holistic care assessments and plan,
implement and evaluate care utilising advanced communication skills.
- To improve access to medication through the support and implementation of
independent Nurse prescribing.
- Demonstrate negotiation and diplomacy skills and partnership working across
the multi-disciplinary team
- To be in collaboration with the multidisciplinary team, with regards to safe,
effective, timely admissions and discharges of patients.
- To identify areas for improvement and development which will enhance the
palliative care provision for patients and carers.
- To work with the other clinical leads within the hospice in undertaking service
improvements as identified.
- To act as a resource locally and nationally on issues related to palliative care.
- Take an active role in continuing to embed the outcome data to provide safe,
responsive and effective care to the people we see in the community.
Leadership:
- It is expected that the consultant will spend up to 60% of their time in direct
patient contact using a combination of face to face, video and telephone
consultations, supporting and clinically supervising the ACP team.
- 40% of the time will be spent in developing services in line with the hospices
clinical strategy and education
- To provide expert clinical leadership alongside the Nurse Consultants across
the organisation
- Working with other clinical leads to develop and implement the Hospices
strategic clinical plan.
- Be involved in the hospice governance process, influencing service provision
and standards within the Hospice and the locality.
- To identify areas for service improvement, working with stakeholders,
including service users, and propose changes as they are needed.
- To project manage change to services, as required.
- Provide support to the clinical teams in their development and learning, driving
change as needed.
- To provide consultancy to other stakeholders involved in specialist palliative
care provision and be recognised in the locality for having expertise in the
field.
- Develop mechanisms to ensure regular feedback from stakeholders and
respond to any informal or formal feedback.
- Collaborate with key stakeholders to develop policy in line with local services
and to ensure best practice.
- Report on prescribing activity governance to enable safe prescribing practice.
- To represent the hospice in relevant groups and at meetings where an expert
nurse is required.
- To maintain patient statistics and comprehensive patient records, providing
data and reports as required ensuring effective and efficient service delivery.
- Utilise audit to improve quality of care and evidence areas for service
improvement.
- Manage complaints, as requested to do so.
- Support the selection and recruitment of new staff and development of new
roles.
- Assess risk and minimise threat to personal safety
- Be a core member of the Local Management Team
- Encourage formal/informal teambuilding
- Chair meetings effectively
- Be responsible for continuing to embed iPOS and other outcome measures,
using data to show the effectiveness of these tools.
Education:
- To work with the Clinical Leadership Team to develop and implement
educational strategies for the development of palliative care within the hospice
and locally.
- To be competent in delivering education and training sessions at all levels for
a variety of key stakeholders, patients and their carers.
- Utilise experiential learning methods and reflective practice. Demonstrate competence in lecture and discussion-based teaching. Mentor new staff and clinical placements.
- Consistently draw on research and literature to influence specialist palliative
care teaching
- Write articles for publication, deliver at conferences, and produce posters for
presentation as required
- Ensure that service developments are evidence based and supported by
research activity.
- Participate in research locally or nationally where appropriate.
- With the Clinical Education lead, identify training needs of the clinical teams.
Participate in the hospice-training programme and staff induction.
- To participate in the development of clinical standards within the total quality
and audit framework of the Hospice and participate in clinical audit, as
required.
Personal Responsibilities:
- To recognise indications of staff stress and to facilitate staff support. To undertake staff personal development reviews annually and one to one
meetings every 6-8 weeks with direct reports
- To facilitate regular team meetings
- To recognise the value of volunteer contribution and play an active part in their
support & development where appropriate.
- To ensure there is a valid indemnity insurance in place which will be partly
refunded by the hospice
- Supported by Pilgrims Hospices, to work with the Responsible Officer and
through the ePreP system to ensure timely revalidation and appraisal,
delivered from within a number of trained Appraisers, in line with the RCP and
revalidation guidelines
Personal Development:
The Medical Consultants will be supported by Pilgrims Hospices to continue their
Professional Development as outlined by the Royal College of Physicians.
On-call:
Medical consultants in Palliative Medicine provide 2nd on-call support for a seven day
period as part of a regional rota, which includes Medical Consultants from Pilgrims
Hospices, East Kent Hospitals University Foundation Trust (EKHUFT) and other
hospices based in Kent. The exact number of postholders across the on-call system
can vary, however, frequency is expected to be approximately one-in-nine and is not
expected to exceed one-in-seven.
Job description
Job responsibilities
MAIN PURPOSE AND SCOPE OF THE JOB:
Consultants are expected to practice at an advanced level and are able to demonstrate
the following:
An expert practice function:The Consultant must be able to deliver high quality
care to patients, enable other practitioners to maintain professional expertise, and to
be able to demonstrate a high degree of professional autonomy within their role of a
specialist within palliative care.
The Consultant will develop or maintain an area of specialist interest and support the
Medical Director and the wider executive team with the realisation of the Pilgrims
Hospices clinical strategy.
This includes the development of clinical policies, standard operating procedures and
guidelines; collaboration with relevant external stakeholders and specialists in that
topic and the development and support of working parties and champions at the
hospice.
Specialist interests might include non-malignant conditions and widening access to
minority groups.
Education, training and development function:The Consultant will contribute to
the training and education of others, establishing formal links with local education
providers. They should also contribute to the development of an education plan for
both internal and external staff to encourage learning and to support income
generation.
Professional leadership and consultancy function: The Consultant should be able
to demonstrate leadership skills which will support and motivate others, in order to
continuously improve quality of care and standards of practice. They should be a
source of expertise and knowledge for others in their specialist fields. Nurse
Consultants will work aligned with the Medical Consultants and their job description
will mirror each other except for areas where legal distinctions such as supervision of
colleagues in training, prescribing of medication and similar, become relevant.
The medical consultants are expected to act as clinical Supervisors for medical
trainees and become Educational Supervisors for trainees of higher training grades
(SpRs).
Practice, service development, research and evaluation: Consultants will
contribute to development of professional practice, through the promotion of evidence based practice and audits of standards of care. They will support research within the
hospice and evaluation of practice within their specialist fields.
Quality assurance: This role is multi-factorial and has the CQC five standards at its
heart. That is to ensure a safe, effective, caring, responsive and well-led patient centred service provision. The Medical Consultants, alongside the Nurse Consultants
will lead on creating an environment where standards of care provision are
outstanding across the clinical services working with all staff to support quality
improvement programmes.
Expert Clinical Practice:
- To be professionally accountable for all work undertaken and to practice at an
advanced level of professional autonomy in line with local/national policy and
guidance
- To work as a Consultant using advanced clinical reasoning and diagnostic
skills, prescribing, planning, and evaluating interventions for patients with
complex presentations.
- To be an authoritative expert assessor/advisor on pain and symptom
management , psychological /spiritual/ social /practical and ethical decisions at
the end of life and to work in partnership with a range of health professionals
to improve their skills in these areas.
- Develop and conduct skilled medical intervention with patients with palliative
care needs, assessing and addressing issues such as quality of life, futility,
prognosis, withdrawing and withholding treatment and end of life decision
making within an ethical framework.
- To undertake complex and sensitive holistic care assessments and plan,
implement and evaluate care utilising advanced communication skills.
- To improve access to medication through the support and implementation of
independent Nurse prescribing.
- Demonstrate negotiation and diplomacy skills and partnership working across
the multi-disciplinary team
- To be in collaboration with the multidisciplinary team, with regards to safe,
effective, timely admissions and discharges of patients.
- To identify areas for improvement and development which will enhance the
palliative care provision for patients and carers.
- To work with the other clinical leads within the hospice in undertaking service
improvements as identified.
- To act as a resource locally and nationally on issues related to palliative care.
- Take an active role in continuing to embed the outcome data to provide safe,
responsive and effective care to the people we see in the community.
Leadership:
- It is expected that the consultant will spend up to 60% of their time in direct
patient contact using a combination of face to face, video and telephone
consultations, supporting and clinically supervising the ACP team.
- 40% of the time will be spent in developing services in line with the hospices
clinical strategy and education
- To provide expert clinical leadership alongside the Nurse Consultants across
the organisation
- Working with other clinical leads to develop and implement the Hospices
strategic clinical plan.
- Be involved in the hospice governance process, influencing service provision
and standards within the Hospice and the locality.
- To identify areas for service improvement, working with stakeholders,
including service users, and propose changes as they are needed.
- To project manage change to services, as required.
- Provide support to the clinical teams in their development and learning, driving
change as needed.
- To provide consultancy to other stakeholders involved in specialist palliative
care provision and be recognised in the locality for having expertise in the
field.
- Develop mechanisms to ensure regular feedback from stakeholders and
respond to any informal or formal feedback.
- Collaborate with key stakeholders to develop policy in line with local services
and to ensure best practice.
- Report on prescribing activity governance to enable safe prescribing practice.
- To represent the hospice in relevant groups and at meetings where an expert
nurse is required.
- To maintain patient statistics and comprehensive patient records, providing
data and reports as required ensuring effective and efficient service delivery.
- Utilise audit to improve quality of care and evidence areas for service
improvement.
- Manage complaints, as requested to do so.
- Support the selection and recruitment of new staff and development of new
roles.
- Assess risk and minimise threat to personal safety
- Be a core member of the Local Management Team
- Encourage formal/informal teambuilding
- Chair meetings effectively
- Be responsible for continuing to embed iPOS and other outcome measures,
using data to show the effectiveness of these tools.
Education:
- To work with the Clinical Leadership Team to develop and implement
educational strategies for the development of palliative care within the hospice
and locally.
- To be competent in delivering education and training sessions at all levels for
a variety of key stakeholders, patients and their carers.
- Utilise experiential learning methods and reflective practice. Demonstrate competence in lecture and discussion-based teaching. Mentor new staff and clinical placements.
- Consistently draw on research and literature to influence specialist palliative
care teaching
- Write articles for publication, deliver at conferences, and produce posters for
presentation as required
- Ensure that service developments are evidence based and supported by
research activity.
- Participate in research locally or nationally where appropriate.
- With the Clinical Education lead, identify training needs of the clinical teams.
Participate in the hospice-training programme and staff induction.
- To participate in the development of clinical standards within the total quality
and audit framework of the Hospice and participate in clinical audit, as
required.
Personal Responsibilities:
- To recognise indications of staff stress and to facilitate staff support. To undertake staff personal development reviews annually and one to one
meetings every 6-8 weeks with direct reports
- To facilitate regular team meetings
- To recognise the value of volunteer contribution and play an active part in their
support & development where appropriate.
- To ensure there is a valid indemnity insurance in place which will be partly
refunded by the hospice
- Supported by Pilgrims Hospices, to work with the Responsible Officer and
through the ePreP system to ensure timely revalidation and appraisal,
delivered from within a number of trained Appraisers, in line with the RCP and
revalidation guidelines
Personal Development:
The Medical Consultants will be supported by Pilgrims Hospices to continue their
Professional Development as outlined by the Royal College of Physicians.
On-call:
Medical consultants in Palliative Medicine provide 2nd on-call support for a seven day
period as part of a regional rota, which includes Medical Consultants from Pilgrims
Hospices, East Kent Hospitals University Foundation Trust (EKHUFT) and other
hospices based in Kent. The exact number of postholders across the on-call system
can vary, however, frequency is expected to be approximately one-in-nine and is not
expected to exceed one-in-seven.
Person Specification
Qualifications
Essential
- Professional qualifications
- Full GMC registration
- Holds CCT or Specialist
- Registration in Palliative
- Medicine or will obtain within 6 months of interview date
- CESR or European community Rights
- Holds MRCP or equivalent
- Has experience in a leadership role or studied leadership at a higher level
Experience
Essential
- Significant experience within a specialist palliative care environment
- Expert clinical practice - delivery of high quality care with expertise and autonomy; develop and maintain specialist areas of interest to support our clinical strategy.
- Leaderships skills - supporting and motivating others in order to continuously improve quality of care and standards of practice
- Commitment to evidence based practice and quality improvement; and a keen interest in research and development.
Skills and Abilities
Essential
- Ability to operate effectively in a committee and contribute to strategic decision making;
- Understands the issues of risk management;
- Self discipline and ability to manage conflicting and unpredictable demands;
- Ability to communicate clearly;
- Ability to build strong and effective relationships with patients, families and colleagues.
Person Specification
Qualifications
Essential
- Professional qualifications
- Full GMC registration
- Holds CCT or Specialist
- Registration in Palliative
- Medicine or will obtain within 6 months of interview date
- CESR or European community Rights
- Holds MRCP or equivalent
- Has experience in a leadership role or studied leadership at a higher level
Experience
Essential
- Significant experience within a specialist palliative care environment
- Expert clinical practice - delivery of high quality care with expertise and autonomy; develop and maintain specialist areas of interest to support our clinical strategy.
- Leaderships skills - supporting and motivating others in order to continuously improve quality of care and standards of practice
- Commitment to evidence based practice and quality improvement; and a keen interest in research and development.
Skills and Abilities
Essential
- Ability to operate effectively in a committee and contribute to strategic decision making;
- Understands the issues of risk management;
- Self discipline and ability to manage conflicting and unpredictable demands;
- Ability to communicate clearly;
- Ability to build strong and effective relationships with patients, families and colleagues.
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).
Additional information
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).
