Leeds Teaching Hospitals

Specialist Cardiac Physiologist (XR06)

This job is now closed

Job summary

Are you a motivated registered Cardiac Physiologist/Scientist who is looking to work at a BSE accredited department and at one of the largest centres in the country?

Leeds Teaching Hospitals is recruiting a Specialist Cardiac Physiologist/Scientist to support the delivery of echocardiography services. Applicants should hold level 2 BSE accreditation or be practically competent and working towards accreditation.

As the supra-regional centre, Leeds has a large echo service and delivers over 28000 transthoracic studies, 1600 stress echos and 600 TOEs each year. The team has access to 15 high spec Philips/GE scanning rooms across 5 hospital sites and many expanding Physiologist/Scientist-led services; stress echo, valve and ICC clinics.

In addition to cardiac ultrasound, Leeds has a large invasive and non-invasive cardiac service and the successful applicant will have the opportunity to maintain skills in these clinical areas if they chose too.

There are 7 high spec cathlabs performing angiography/PCI, 24/7 primary PCI, transcatheter valve intervention, PPM/CRT/ICD/leadless implants and lead extractions, paediatric intervention, EP/ablation & Scientist-led ILR implants.

The department has a large adult/paed devices follow-up service, including a Scientist-led HF clinic. There is also a complementary non-invasive service that includes exercise testing, ambulatory analysis and CPX.

We can offer flexible working to support you to have a good work life balance.

Main duties of the job

Successful applicant will join a large, experienced and friendly cardiac ultrasound team and provide accurate and factual ultrasound reports, rotating between inpatient and outpatient transthoracic lists as well as TOE. The successful applicant will also have the opportunity to gain skills to support specialist echo clinics. We encourage autonomous practice but support is always available from senior colleagues and the specialist imaging cardiologists.

The successful applicant will be offered the choice to rotate through the wider invasive and non-invasive areas to maintain/learn skills. Those with relevant specialist skills will join the out of hours on call service for primary PCI, roughly 1 in 20.

As a large teaching hospital we expect applicants to support and deliver training to junior collagues, including student learners. We actively support formal educational programmes, participation at Healthcare Scientist events and professional conferences, and contribution to the established departmental audit and clinical governance programme to maintain professional CPD is expected.

Interested in knowing more? Please contact us to arrange a call or a time to visit.

About us

Leeds Teaching Hospitals NHS Trust is one of the largest acute health providers in the UK and CQC rated as GOOD. The successful applicant will join a team of over 120 healthcare scientists and support staff and will work closely with expert colleagues across the department, developing your own knowledge and skills at the same time.

At LTHT, we aim to be a fair and supportive hospital with positive, caring teams who are champions of the Leeds Way values. Our values are part of what make us different from other Trusts, so we see this as a strength, as well as a responsibility. They have been developed by our staff and set out what they see as important to how we work. Our five values are:

Patient-centred

Collaborative

Fair

Accountable

Empowered

Leeds Teaching Hospitals is committed to our process of redeploying 'at risk' members of our existing workforce to new roles. As such, all our job adverts are subject to this policy and we reserve the right to close, delay or remove adverts while this process is completed. If you do experience a delay in the shortlisting stage of the recruitment cycle, please bear with us while this process is completed, and contact the named contact if you have any questions.

Date posted

27 June 2023

Pay scheme

Agenda for change

Band

Band 6

Salary

£35,392 to £42,618 a year

Contract

Permanent

Working pattern

Full-time, Flexible working

Reference number

C9298-CRS-108

Job locations

Leeds General Infirmary

Great George Street

Leeds

LS1 3EX

Job description

Job responsibilities

Principal Duties & Areas of Responsibilty

Clinical Duties

To be professionally and legally accountable for all aspect of work, including the management of patients in your care.

To undertake routine assessment of inpatients and outpatients prior to a range of cardiac investigations to ensure the patient is suitable for the investigation.

Participates in the on-call rota (7day/24hour) for acute emergencies in the Cardiac Catheter Lab and/or for those with implantable cardiac devices and performs clinical duties out of hours. This requires a high level of autonomy, often giving advice to medical staff with limited specialist knowledge thus directly influencing patient care/outcomes.

Routinely undertakes assessment of both inpatients and outpatients prior to a range of cardiac investigations and uses own discretion in order to ensure the patient is suitable for the investigation.

Provides clinical technical advice to patients, carers and other members of the multidisciplinary team both within and outside the cardiology department.

Carries out all aspects of clinical work as approved by the clinical management team.

Works as an autonomous practitioner within established departmental Standard Operating Procedures and codes of practice.

Communicates with all members of the multidisciplinary team and trust-wide staff to ensure the best possible care for patients by using negotiating, reassurance and persuasiveness skills.

Communicates information about routine and complex cardiac investigations to patients and relatives/carers including children and those with learning and/or physical disabilities.

Calibrates and manipulates a wide range of complex, expensive technical equipment which processes, creates, updates and stores information.

Carries out a broad range of fundamental and complex cardiac investigations and following analysis and interpretation of physiological data, provides accurate and factual reports.

Clinical investigations would be dependent on the applicants skill set and area of clinical focus and may include but are not limited to:

- Advanced ECG assessments/calculations

- Ambulatory and remote monitoring analysis

- Cardiac angiography/intervention and heamodynamic assessment, both adult and paediatric

- Cardiac ultrasound imaging

- Cardio-Pulmonary Exercise (CPX)

- Electrophysiology studies

- Permanent Pacemaker (PPM) and Implantable Cardioverter Defibrillators (ICDs) implantations

- Physiologist led PPM and ICD follow-up

- Physiologist led and medically supervised exercise testing

- Temporary pacemaker insertions

- Therapeutic radiofrequency ablations

- Tilt testing

This does not provide an exhaustive list of roles and responsibilities, and these may be subject to change with professional and service developments.

Demonstrates personal duty of care for safe use of expensive and highly complex equipment and reports equipment faults in accordance with departmental policy.

Maintains stock levels of consumable items and for day to day security of expensive equipment e.g. implantable devices.

Professional

Maintain professional registration; RCCP, AHCS, HCPC.

Responsible for maintaining own technical competencies in clinical areas including achieving professional exams/membership appropriate to clinical area, e.g. BHRS, BSE etc.

Experience and knowledge of specialist cardiac investigations and techniques at postgraduate level.

Responsible for reporting clinical incidents and adverse events to the appropriate responsible clinical service manager.

Expected to undertake informal training by means of periodic in-house assessments.

Responsible for formal mentorship and input into coordination of training of designated junior staff and students.

Be an active member of the departmental clinical governance meetings and in-service training programme by attendance at, and participation in, in-service training programmes, tutorials, individual training sessions, external courses and peer review.

Undertakes Continuing Professional Development (CPD) in accordance with Personal Development Plan (PDP) as developed with Line Manager.

Attends and participates in departmental staff meetings.

Maintains and develops current knowledge of evidence based practice in each clinical area.

Frequently undertakes collection of data for use in audit, research projects and equipment testing.

Regularly provides training in fundamental cardiac techniques to Trainee Cardiac Physiologists and junior staff members.

Organisational

Demonstrates the ability to prioritise and organise the clinical caseload within a designated area of cardiology.

Effort

Required to exert moderate physical effort. Frequent transferring of patients and equipment on both trolleys and wheelchairs.

There is a frequent requirement for prolonged, but often predictable, periods of concentration.

Frequent exposure to highly distressing situations, e.g. cardiac arrests during rescue coronary intervention while the patient is having a heart attack.

Frequent exposure to highly emotional circumstances, e.g. catheterisation of small babies who will inevitably die due to the nature of their congenital heart defects or disabling cardiac devices of the terminally ill in whom lifesaving treatment has agreed to been withdrawn.

Requires a high level of manual dexterity and good hand to eye coordination in order to ensure the accurate application of a range of diagnostic tools.

Requires a high level of sensory coordination in order to immediately recognise life threatening physiological signs and then respond appropriately.

To comply with the Trusts manual handling policy at all times.

Frequent exposure to unpleasant working conditions on a regular daily basis, e.g. bodily fluids including blood, sputum, vomit, urine, fleas and lice.

Occasional exposure to verbal and physical aggression.

Deals sensitively with patients who have high levels of anxiety and aggression caused by pain, dementia or limited mobility.