Fixed-Term Consultant in General Medicine (6 months)

Job responsibilities

Please see job description attached

This is a full-time post based at West Suffolk Hospital. The post is funded for 10 PAs. The post-holder will join other consultant colleagues in the Medical Division.

Duties & responsibilities of the post

At West Suffolk Hospital the appointee will be expected to provide a clinical and administrative service in and General (Internal) Medicine.

General Medicine

The in-patient beds will be shared with other consultant colleagues on designated wards.

The weekday working pattern starts at 08:30hrs until 17.00hrs Monday to Fridays. There are protected shifts for administration and SPA time (1.5PAs). The appointee will conduct regular ward rounds including board rounds as agreed on the Job Plan. There are several doctors in training based on the ward, including juniors at all grades and levels.

The Trust delivers services to patients seven days a week and aims to provide equality of treatment and outcome regardless of the day of the week. To meet these aims and changing service requirements, the Trust may need you either to work temporarily outside of your core hours or to permanently change your core working days and hours. The Trust will give you reasonable notice, where possible, of temporary changes to your days or hours of work and will consult with you and/or your staff representatives about substantial permanent changes, but ultimately, these are changes which may be required of you.

Administrative

To produce, maintain and update departmental clinical management guidelines in line with evidence based best practice on a continuing basis.

The appointee will be encouraged to take an active role in any relevant Trust committees or sub-committees.

Educational Arrangements

The University of Cambridge Medical School Graduate Course is based at the West Suffolk, which led to the development of a new teaching complex. The appointee is expected to participate in teaching and training of medical students on the Graduate Course and the traditional Cambridge course, junior staff and other clinical staff groups. The appointee will also have supervision responsibilities for junior medical staff within the specialty.

Supervision of the training of Junior Doctors in the Department will be required in accordance with their provisions of the Royal College of Physicians. Contribution to grand round meetings in the Education Centre is encouraged.

If appropriate, the post-holder will be named in the contract of junior staff as the person responsible for overseeing their training and as an initial source of advice to such doctors regarding their careers.

Timetable

A formal job plan will be agreed between the appointee, the Lead Clinician and their Clinical Director (CD) and their Associate Director of Operations (ADO), on behalf of the Executive Medical Director, three months after commencement. This will be signed by the Clinical Lead and the Associate Director of Operations and will be effective either from the commencement date of the appointment or at an alternative agreed date.

The job plan for the first three months will a provisional timetable based upon mainly inpatient work on the designated wards. There will be protected time for Admin and SPA.

The job plan will be reviewed annually with the Lead Clinician and the Clinical Director of Support Services and ADO, and will be linked to Appraisal. The job plan will be a prospective agreement that sets out a consultant's duties, responsibilities and objectives for the coming year. It should cover all aspects of a consultant's professional practice including clinical work, teaching, research, private practice, education and managerial responsibilities. It should provide a clear schedule of commitments, both internal and external. In addition, it should include personal objectives, including details of their link to wider service objectives, and details of the support required by the consultant to fulfil the job plan and the objectives. In the event of disagreement on the allocation of duties, leave, short-term cover etc, the ultimate decision will lie with the Clinical Director and the ADO.

The annual review is an opportunity to check that the record of fixed and flexible sessions is accurate and compliant with EWTD, covers on-call commitments and is compatible with the agreed template for the specialty and is an opportunity to resolve any problems arising. It also provides an opportunity for constructive debate about evolving special interest, which the appointee may wish to pursue.

Category II work may be undertaken within the Terms and Conditions of Service and may be discussed and revised at this review.

Clinical Governance/Audit is undertaken as an ongoing programme both locally and within the Region. It is expected that the appointee will be actively involved in this and all routine clinical duties should be suspended during these sessions.

For a full-time Consultant a standard week would consist of 8.5 sessions of DCC and 1.5 sessions of SPA. This standard DCC/SPA split has been agreed by the West Suffolk NHS Foundation Trust LNC.

The Trust does pay additional PAs for those consultants performing agreed, specified additional roles. These may be available for those wishing to take on extra responsibilities such as educational supervisor of clinical governance lead. These additional PAs may range from 0.1 to 0.5 PAs. There may be the option of covering additional evening and weekend shifts on the AMU which will be remunerated accordingly.

Please see draft timetable attatched

Annual Leave Arrangements and Cover

The appointee will be expected to provide prospective cover for short periods of annual and study leave and other authorised absences from duty of the other Consultants based on the ward.

Senior annual leave must not conflict with other colleagues. Leave must be discussed and agreed with departmental colleagues before being signed off by the directorate managers. Please note that Trust policy is that six weeks notice is required for leave.

Prolonged periods of leave or absence beyond four weeks must be discussed with the Clinical Director. Locum cover may then be granted in line with existing Trust policies and directives at the discretion of the Clinical Director or Assistant Director.

Any intended deviation from these arrangements must be discussed with, and approved in advance by, the Clinical Director in consultation with the Lead Consultant.

Office space and secretarial support will be available.

Mentoring

The new appointee will be supported and mentored for the first six months of the post it will be provided by one of the consultants in the department, depending on the appointees choice.

Qualifications

Essential

• MRCP or equivalent
• Full GMC registration

Desirable

• MD or PhD
• Entry on the GMC specialist register in General (Internal) Medicine or be eligible for entry (within six months of attaining Certificate of Completion of Specialist Training) at the time of interview

Research & Publications

Essential

• Ability to apply research outcomes to clinical problems
• Publications in peer reviewed journals

Desirable

• Experience of conducting research projects
• Publications in peer reviewed journals

Experience

Essential

• Clinical training and experience equivalent to that required for gaining UK CCT in General Medicine
• Experience in management of acute medical inpatients and medical outpatients
• Ability to take full and independent responsibility for clinical care of patients
• Experience in management of General Medicine in-patient and out-patient medicine
• Experience of supervising FY1s, FY2s StRs and SpRs
• Ability to teach clinical skills
• To have training and experience in appraisal systems

Desirable

• Five years supervised training in an appropriate SpR training programme or equivalent
• Experience of teaching basic clinical skills to undergraduates
• Experience of teaching other professional groups
• Ability to supervise postgraduate research

Management & Audit Training

Essential

• Ability to organise and manage day to day service delivery e.g. out-patient priorities
• Ability to manage and lead strategic developments in service delivery
• Experience of audit management
• Ability and willingness to work within the Trust and NHS performance framework and targets

Special Aptitudes

Essential

• Self-motivated: able to act on own initiative
• Enthusiasm and dynamism to improve, monitor and sustain the highest achievable clinical standards
• To possess an enquiring mind, generally challenging the status quo to ensure clinically effective evidence-based best practice
• Capacity to accept full responsibility to lead a clinical team
• To teach and train all human resources from a wide spectrum of skills, background, abilities and experience

Knowledge & Skills

Essential

• Depth and breadth of experience in acute ward based and out-patient medicine
• All applicants to have demonstrable skills in written and spoken English that are adequate to enable effective communication about medical topics with patients and colleagues which could be demonstrated by one of the following: -
• -that applicants have undertaken undergraduate medical training in English; or
• -have the following scores in the academic International English Language Testing System (IELTS)-Overall 7.5. Speaking 7, Listening 7, Reading 7, Writing 7.
• If applicants believe that they have adequate communication skills, but do not fit into one of the examples they need to provide evidence
• To have a thorough knowledge and demonstrable understanding of Good Medical Practice from the GMC

Personal Skills & Qualities

Essential

• Good personal interactive communications skills: clarity of expression and purpose
• The ability to work as a team member
• Acceptance of management and administrative duties by working within a structured hospital team for the greater good
• Enquiring, critical approach to work
• Caring attitude to patients
• Ability to communicate effectively with patients, relatives, GPs, nurses and other agencies
• Commitment to Continuing Medical Education and the requirements of Clinical Governance

Desirable

• Has own/current driving licence

Certificate of Sponsorship

Applications from job seekers who require current Skilled worker sponsorship to work in the UK are welcome and will be considered alongside all other applications. For further information visit the UK Visas and Immigration website (Opens in a new tab).

From 6 April 2017, skilled worker applicants, applying for entry clearance into the UK, have had to present a criminal record certificate from each country they have resided continuously or cumulatively for 12 months or more in the past 10 years. Adult dependants (over 18 years old) are also subject to this requirement. Guidance can be found here Criminal records checks for overseas applicants (Opens in a new tab).

UK Registration

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