Radiotherapy Treatment Planning Assistant

Job description

Job responsibilities

Please note: This role does not meet the minimum criteria for visa sponsorship under the current UK immigration rules, which set specific salary and skill thresholds. As such, we are unable to provide sponsorship for this post. Applicants will therefore need to already have the right to work in the UK to be considered. We include this information at the outset to provide clarity and avoid unnecessary inconvenience for applicants.

If you are applying using a Graduate visa as your right to work, you must have a minimum of 18 months remaining on your visa at time of application.

Communication

1. Communicate information sensitively in situations that have tight time frames.

2. Negotiate, motivate, and persuade to ensure timely completion of plans for treatment delivery.

3. Create and maintain effective communication systems and working relationships with the scientific, technical, and administrative staff in the Medical Physics Department, and with medical, radiographic, nursing and administrative staff in the SCC.

4. Respect and maintain patients rights to confidentiality according to the Data protection act 2018, and in line with Trust policy.

5. Interact with cancer patients in an empathetic manner recognising the stress and anxiety that a diagnosis of cancer brings.

6. Participate in relevant meetings.

7. Behave courteously and professionally at all times and seek to ensure that the highest level of service is provided.

Patient Care Delivery

1. Monitor check lists on Mosaiq for incoming plans from the CT scanner. Be aware of any patients coming through requiring a rescan and organise a doctor to volume where necessary.

2. Liaise with the radiotherapy bookings team to discuss any updates to patient start dates. Consideration must be given to complying with government cancer waiting time standards.

3. Update patient appointments and check list tasks in MOSAIQ for voluming, planning, plan review, plan checking and patient specific QA. Consider consultant and physics staff availability and leave, etc. to ensure smooth pathway.

4. Liaise with clinical staff to ensure workflows are followed and readjust pathways to ensure timely completion.

5. Import and prepare imaging data ensuring all image data sets are present and are in the correct format for volume delineation by the doctors. This will include both CT and MR images for some anatomical sites.

6. Perform image fusion on images in treatment planning systems according to local procedures.

7. Identify and outline Organs At Risk on planning images following departmental protocols, using careful manual outlining for final approval/adjustment by clinicians.

8. Manage doctors check lists on MOSAIQ ensuring plans for voluming or review are allocated to the correct clinician and are given the appropriate time scale. In situations where the workload is high, determine the best way forward to ensure timely completion; this may involve negotiating with other clinicians to complete the task.

9. Pro-actively inform the physics plan checking and radiographer calculation teams of late plans.

10. Monitor the workflow within the planning section to ensure plans are released in time for radiographer data preparation tasks to be completed before the scheduled start of radiotherapy treatment.

11. Retrieve and import from electronic archives details of previous radiotherapy treatment(s) for patients referred for further radiotherapy.

12. Assist in the production of patient specific treatment aids such as paraffin gauze bolus, wax blocks, lead or low melting point alloy electron cut-outs using a range of manufacturing techniques.

13. Assist in the manufacture of customised patient immobilisation masks and impressions for the production of lead shielding masks.

14. Proactively deal with delays in the patient pathway. This will involve co-ordinating with staff groups further along the pathway who will be affected by any change and informing patients of changes to their appointments.

15. Assist with regular audits to improve the service and identify bottlenecks for a more efficient service.

16. Assist in carrying out routine QC checks on computerised treatment planning systems according to departmental protocols as part of the Quality System.

17. Identify and recommend changes to administration procedures within the service which will improve the quality of service to patients and assist in the writing of local Work Instructions to support this.

18. Work under own initiative seeking advice when necessary and identify areas for improvements.

19. Carry out other departmental duties commensurate with role as directed by the line manager.

Please see the attached documents for a more detailed job description.

Person Specification

Qualifications

Essential

• GCSEs in English and Maths or equivalent

Desirable

• A Level, Diploma, NVQ3 level or equivalent

Experience

Desirable

• Experience in working in healthcare or customer service environment

Communication

Essential

• Excellent oral and written communication skills

Equality Diversity and Inclusion

Essential

• Evidence of having undertaken own development to improve understanding of equalities issues
• Evidence of having championed diversity in previous roles (as appropriate to role).

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.

Employer details

Employer name

University Hospitals Sussex NHS Foundation Trust (279)

Address

Royal Sussex County Hospital

Sussex Cancer Centre, Bristol Gate

Brighton

BN2 5BE

Employer's website

https://www.uhsussex.nhs.uk/ (Opens in a new tab)