Consultant in Palliative Medicine - United Kingdom - Shrewsbury and Telford Hospital NHS Trust

Shrewsbury and Telford Hospital NHS Trust United Kingdom

3 weeks ago

Description

Job overview

An exciting opportunity has arisen for two Consultants in Palliative Medicine to join a friendly and dynamic team based at The Shrewsbury and Telford Hospital NHS Trust working in collaboration with Severn Hospice. The Department of Palliative Medicine at SaTH consists of a team of 3 senior specialist palliative care doctors. Together with the team at Severn Hospice, providing palliative care to the population of Shropshire, Telford and Wrekin and Mid-Wales.

Two posts are offered (one of which replaces a fixed term locum post) which attract 8-10 programmed activities each and an on-call supplement. Applications are welcome from those who wish to work full-time, part time or job share.

Main duties of the job

Clinical Duties Include:

To provide further consultant input to palliative and end of life care services at Shrewsbury and Telford Hospitals and Severn Hospice
To provide an early, proactive, palliative care review service with support to both hospital sites, The Royal Shrewsbury Hospital (RSH) and Princess Royal Hospital (PRH), Telford.
To support the existing Palliative and end of life care nursing team (specialist palliative care CNSs and End of life care nurses)
To provide support for daily ward reviews to optimise holistic patient care and flow to the Hospice and Community
To provide Specialist Palliative Care MDT input to facilitate early decision making and improve symptom control
To support the 7-day Specialist Palliative Care service across the Trust, Severn Hospice and the community
To participate in the existing out of hours specialist palliative care consultant on call rota for the Shropshire Telford and Wrekin, and North Powys area, which is shared between Hospital and Hospice Palliative care consultants. (circa 1 in 7 non-resident on call, largely telephone advice but with occasional face to face reviews to Severn Hospice IPU only. Historical oncall data suggests this would be no more frequent than once per quarter)
To participate as an active member of the Palliative and end of life care steering group which develops palliative and end of life care across the trust.
To provide supervision of and education for junior medical staff.
To collaborate in the provision of the palliative and end of life care education program to all front line clinicians within the trust. For example, regarding advance care planning, ReSPECT and SWAN end of life care principles
To provide the postholder with the opportunity to further develop a subspeciality interest in collaboration with other clinical teams across the trust. Areas for development might include, but are not limited to, collaborative working with other departments such as Hepatology, Acute Oncology, Cardiology, Acute medicine and admission portals.
To undertake teaching, examination and accreditation duties as required and to contribute to postgraduate and continuing education both locally and nationally.
To participate in clinical governance including to undertake quality improvement and clinical audit.
At Severn Hospice, the main clinical duties would include:
- Provision of Consultant input to the hospice wards, mainly based on Perry ward ,Shrewsbury (8 beds), but providing cross-cover to Alexandra Ward, Telford (11 beds) when needed.
- Provide clinical leadership for the hospice multidisciplinary team
- To oversee the care of patients admitted to the hospice for symptom control, emergency respite and terminal care.
- To develop enhanced clinical skills, especially in the assessment and management of acutely ill patients.
To have excellent team-working skills with the abilities and professional attitude to work well in a multi-professional team.
To deliver clinical and quality targets agreed both nationally and locally with clinical teams and commissioners.
To follow patients throughout their clinical pathways.

Working for your organisation

The Shrewsbury and Telford Hospital NHS Trust (SaTH) is the main provider of acute hospital services for around half a million people in Shropshire, Telford & Wrekin and mid Wales.

Encompassing some of the most picturesque parts of England and Wales, the Trust's catchment stretches from the Cambrian Mountains in the west, to Newport and the fringes of the Black Country in the east. The main towns include: Bridgnorth, Ludlow, Market Drayton, Oswestry, Shrewsbury and Whitchurch (in Shropshire); Newport, Telford and Wellington (in Telford & Wrekin); and Newtown and Welshpool (in Powys) – all beautiful and unique.

Our main service locations are the Princess Royal Hospital (PRH) in Telford and the Royal Shrewsbury Hospital (RSH) in Shrewsbury which are located 20 minutes' drive apart. Together they provide 99% of our activity. Both hospitals provide a wide range of acute hospital services including accident & emergency, outpatients, diagnostics, inpatient medical care and critical care.

Detailed job description and main responsibilities

A formal job plan will be agreed between the successful candidate/s and their Clinical Director and consultant colleagues, on behalf of the Medical Director within 3 months of starting in post. A full-time job plan is based on a 10 PA working week. The job plan will be reviewed annually and is a prospective agreement that sets out the consultant's duties, responsibilities, and objectives for the coming year. It covers all aspects of a consultant's professional practice including clinical work, teaching, research, education and managerial responsibilities. It will provide a clear schedule of commitments, both internal and external and will include personal objectives, detailing links to wider service improvements and trust strategic priorities.

For an 8PA contract, the job plan will be divided on average per week as:

6 Programmed Activities (PAs) of Direct Clinical Care - includes clinical activity, clinically related activity and predictable and unpredictable emergency work.
2 Supporting Professional Activities (SPAs) - includes CPD, audit, teaching and research.
Out of Hours Activity - On call is non-resident, 1:7, 3% supplement. This is largely telephone advice but with occasional face to face reviews to Severn Hospice IPU only. Historical on call data suggests this would be no more frequent than once per quarter.

The allocation of PAs is reviewed and may be subject to adjustment when a further diary exercise is undertaken or if the service demands a review of the team job plan. The job plan conforms to the current recommendations of the Royal College of Physicians.