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 as a result of maternity leave
and is for a fixed period from June 2026 to March 2027. This post is 0.8 WTE. Terms
and Conditions will be based on the current NHS Consultant Contract, (see Job
Plan 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 8
second on call with 5% 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 is 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 thatsupports 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 Suffolk's 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.
The Hospice has a Chief Executive and a
Senior Leadership Team which includes the Medical Director, Director of Care,
Director of Income Generation and Chief Operating Officer.
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. Since May 2025 the Trust has been part of Norfolk and Waveney University
Hospitals Group.
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. A new hospital build is in advanced stages of
development as is implementation of an electronic health record.
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 or face to face 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.
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.
